Persistently ambiguous: a taxometric investigation on two groups of suicidal ideation indicators

TL;DR

This study investigates whether suicidal ideation is best understood as a single dimension or a category, finding it to be a complex and ambiguous construct.

Contribution

The study contributes novel taxometric analysis of suicidal ideation indicators in nonclinical populations, revealing persistent ambiguity in its structure.

Findings

Results showed ambiguity in the latent structure of suicidal ideation (Mean CCFI BSS = 0.46; Mean CCFI SIDAS = 0.45).

Findings neither support taxonicity nor dimensionality for suicidal ideation indicators.

The study suggests suicidal ideation may involve multiple components rather than a single structure.

Abstract

We performed a taxometric investigation into the underlying structure of suicidal ideation in two diverse samples of nonclinical adult populations.

We relied upon one sample of 547 individuals, aged 18–78, who responded to the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS), and one sample of 989 participants aged 18–64 who responded to the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale (SIDAS). We analyzed the data using different taxometric techniques: MAMBAC, MAXEIG, and L-Mode.

Our findings suggest ambiguity in the suicidal ideation latent structure (Mean CCFI BSS dataset = 0.46; Mean CCFI SIDAS dataset = 0.45) the results neither indicate any clear tendency toward taxonicity nor toward dimensionality.

We discuss them based on the possibility that suicidal ideation may represent a complex construct encompassing multiple components.

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