3 - (SYM 87) Group-, Subgroup-, and Individual-level Paths Among Suicide Risk Processes in a Sample of Rural Sexual Minority Adults at High Risk for Suicide

Sexual minorities experience suicidal thoughts and behaviors at rates 3–6 times higher than heterosexuals. However, there is a complete absence of research on sexual minorities’ acute suicide risk processes. Even if acute risk processes were known for sexual minorities, sexual minorities are not a monolithic group. This study thus estimates acute and dynamic networks of suicide risk factors among rural sexual minority adults, identifying associations at the levels of groups, subgroups, and individuals.

N=41 sexual minority adults living in the rural US completed 5 surveys/day for 21 days. Assessments included minority stress experiences (exogenous variable), minority stress reactions (i.e., feeling insecure about sexual orientation), theory-based suicide risk factors (entrapment, hopelessness, burdensomeness, low belonging, agitation, disgust with self, and disgust with others/the world), and suicide ideation. Paths among risk processes at the levels of group, subgroups, and individuals were estimated using group iterative multiple model estimation.

There were 5 group-level contemporaneous paths (excluding autoregressive paths): agitation  entrapment, entrapment  burdensomeness and hopelessness, hopelessness  suicide ideation, and burdensomeness  low belonging. There were two subgroup-level contemporaneous paths: agitation  disgust with others/the world and disgust with others/the world  disgust with self. There were 134 unique individual-level paths. Notably, no group or subgroup-level paths included minority stress experiences or reactions. N=27 (65.9%) individual-level models contained at least one association between minority stress experiences or reactions and suicide risk factors.

Minority stress experiences and suicide risk factors show unique interrelations among rural sexual minority adults. Although some group-level paths were found, most paths were unique to individual people. This individual-specificity also applied to the ways in which minority stress experiences and reactions inter-related with other suicide risk processes. Results support that there are both group- and individual-level suicide risk processes among rural sexual minority people.