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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: JAMA Psychiatry. 2015 Sep 1;72(9):917–926. doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.0987

Table 3.

Enlisted Soldiers: Multivariate Associations of Length of Service, Deployment Status, and Time Since Most Recent Mental Health Diagnosis with Suicide Attempts in the Army STARRS 2004–2009 Historical Administrative Data Study (HADS) Sample (n = 163,178).1,2

I. Length of Service1
OR 95% CI Cases (N) Total (N)3 Rate4 Pop %5 SR6
1–2 years 2.4* 2.19–2.57 5,416 8,560,616 759.2 27.9 585.6
3–4 years 1.5* 1.41–1.63 2,278 6,819,878 400.8 22.2 369.7
5–10 years 1.0 – 1,542 8,322,742 222.3 27.1 245.1
> 10 years 0.5* 0.39–0.52 414 7,012,014 70.8 22.8 106.3
 χ23 589.3*
II. Deployment Status1
OR 95% CI Cases (N) Total (N)3 Rate4 Pop %5 SR6
Never deployed 2.8* 2.59–2.99 5,894 12,421,294 569.4 40.4 443.9
Currently deployed 1.0 – 940 7,173,140 157.3 23.4 165.7
Previously deployed 2.6* 2.42–2.81 2,816 11,120,816 303.9 36.2 423.8
 χ22 839.3*
III. Times Since Most Recent Mental Health Diagnosis1
OR 95% CI Cases (N) Total (N)3 Rate4 Pop %5 SR6
No Diagnosis 1.0 – 3,876 23,156,276 200.9 75.4 191.0
1 Month 18.2* 17.39–19.12 3,516 1,150,916 3,665.9 3.7 3,490.7
2–3 Months 5.8* 5.40–6.28 833 856,033 1,167.7 2.8 1,127.7
4–12 Months 2.9* 2.65–3.07 887 1,989,887 534.9 6.5 552.6
13+ Months 1.4* 1.31–1.58 538 3,562,138 181.2 11.6 276.4
 χ24 15,255.6*
1

In separately examining the effects of length of service, deployment status, and mental health diagnosis, we controlled for the basic socio-demographic variables reported in Tables 1 and 2 (gender, age at entry into the Army, current age, race, education, marital status). All analyses also included a dummy predictor variable for calendar month and year to control for secular trends.

2

The sample of enlisted soldiers is a subset of the total sample (n = 193,617 person-months) that includes all Regular Army soldiers (i.e., excluding those in the U.S. Army National Guard and Army Reserve) with a suicide attempt in their administrative records during the years 2004–2009, plus a 1:200 stratified probability sample of all other active duty Regular Army person-months in the population exclusive of soldiers with a suicide attempt or other non-fatal suicidal event (e.g., suicidal ideation) and person-months associated with death (i.e., suicides, combat deaths, homicides, and deaths due to other injuries or illnesses). All records in the 1:200 sample were assigned a weight of 200 to adjust for the under-sampling of months not associated with suicide attempt.

3

Total includes both cases (i.e., soldiers with a suicide attempt) and control person-months.

4

Rate per 100,000 person-years, calculated based on n1/n2, where n1 is the unique number of soldiers within each category and n2 is the annual number of person-years, not person-months, in the population (n=3.08 million).

5

Pop % = Population percent.

6

SR = Standardized rate.