Abstract
This narrative review is focused on brief summaries of 58 papers on suicidality published during 2024. The topics can be categorized as prevalence data, risk factors, comorbidities, potential underlying biological mechanisms, buffers and interventions. In this current literature, the prevalence of suicidality has ranged from 4% in a sample of older adults from China to 61% in a sample of adults with psychiatric problems and has varied by type of suicidality including ideation, planning, attempts and death. The risk factors include a history of attempts, fearlessness of death, impulsivity, and lack of self-regulation. Social risk factors have included “perceived burdensomeness”, “thwarted belongingness”, being bullied, and social withdrawal. Personality predictors included masculinity and narcissism. Cognitive risk factors include thought suppression, pain avoidance and being non-religious. Situational factors include adversity and climate change. Multiple comorbidities for suicidality were noted throughout this literature including depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, hoarding, subthreshold ADHD, subthreshold PTSD and Parkinson’s disease. The few potential underlying biological mechanisms have included increased sympathetic activation, dysregulated biological rhythms, and involvement of the right amygdala and left caudate regions of the brain. Buffers include resilience, optimism/flourishing, sensation-seeking, social support, and exposure to greenness. The few interventions that have appeared include psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, telehealth, online therapy and virtual reality. Methodological limitations of this literature include the frequent sampling of psychiatric patients whose pathology itself could be the primary risk factor, the researchers’ frequent use of mediation analyses involving pre-selected variables and the variability across studies on the level of suicidality studied including ideation, planning, attempts and death.