{"doi":"10.1111/sltb.12778","title":"Social closeness and support are associated with lower risk of suicide among U.S. Army soldiers","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: We tested the aspects of social support, unit cohesion, and religiosity hypothesized to be protective factors for suicide among U.S. service members. METHODS: This case-control study compared U.S. Army soldiers who died by suicide while on active duty (n = 135) to controls of two types: those propensity score-matched on known sociodemographic risk factors (n = 128); and those controls who had thought about, but not died by, suicide in the past year (n = 108). Data included structured interviews of next of kin (NOK) and Army supervisors (SUP) for each case and control soldier. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine predictors of suicide. RESULTS: Perceived social closeness and seeking help from others were associated with decreased odds of suicide, as reported by SUP (OR = 0.2 [95% CI = 0.1, 0.5]) and NOK (OR = 0.4 [95% CI = 0.2, 0.8]). Novel reports by SUP informants of high levels of unit cohesion/morale decreased odds of suicide (OR = 0.1 [95% CI = 0.0, 0.2]). Contrary to study hypotheses, no religious affiliation was associated with lower odds of suicide (OR = 0.3 [95% CI = 0.2, 0.6]). CONCLUSIONS: Perceived social closeness and unit/group cohesion are associated with lower odds of suicide. These results point toward social intervention strategies as testable components of suicide prevention programs.","journal":"Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior","year":2021,"id":179545,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":18,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9612,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":407402,"name":"David M. Benedek","orcid":"0000-0001-9480-1412","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274492,"name":"Matthew K. Nock","orcid":"0000-0001-6508-1145","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":535232,"name":"Kelly L. Zuromski","orcid":"0000-0002-4798-898X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18907,"name":"David A. Brent","orcid":"0000-0002-5756-2157","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":727884,"name":"Jingning Ao","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":408260,"name":"Pablo A. Aliaga","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426139,"name":"Steven G. Heeringa","orcid":"0000-0002-3920-8074","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":59273,"name":"Ronald C. Kessler","orcid":"0000-0003-4831-2305","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":22832,"name":"Murray B Stein","orcid":"0000-0001-9564-2871","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264443,"name":"Robert J. Ursano","orcid":"0000-0002-1861-9173","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":407400,"name":"Catherine L. Dempsey","orcid":"0000-0002-5712-6590","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":37,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:48.974996Z","pmid":"34196966","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}