Cross-cultural suicide risk model: Evidence of predictive capacity in two Latin American countries

Abstract

Introduction: The prevalence of suicide risk among countries such as Colombia and Mexico, has increased over the years, and parsimonious models with favorable explanatory capacity are required.Objective: To develop a suicide risk model with a cross-cultural predictive capacity based on the clinicalvariables such as depression, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation, in two Latin American countries.Materials and Method: There was a final sample of 807 Mexican and Colombian adults, 278 men, and 531women. Scales of hopelessness (IDIS), suicidal ideation (PANSI and IDIS), depression (SDS), and suicidal risk(SRS), were used. Two predictive hypotheses were tested: a) depression is associated with hopelessnessand suicidal ideation in the same way in both countries, and b) suicidal ideation predicts suicide risk and isassociated with depression and hopelessness.Results: The findings indicated high and significant correlations between the predictor and criterionvariables. The model obtained showed a total explained variance of 67% of the suicide risk and 66% foreach country. Conclusions: It was verified that the model was invariant between the samples of the twoparticipating countries, which represented new evidence of the cross-cultural utility of the model obtainedbased on cognitions and affect on suicidal behavior