The increased hazard rate of death by suicide for military personnel varies by time since exposure to deployment, mental health diagnoses, and other stressful life events, according to a recent study. Researchers performed a retrospective multivariate analysis of all US military personnel between 2001 and 2011 (n=110,035,573 person-quarter-years, representing 3,795,823 service members). Outcome was death by suicide, either during service or post-separation. They found:

• The strongest predictors of death by suicide were current and past diagnoses of self-inflicted injuries, major depression, bipolar disorder, substance use disorder, and other mental health conditions.
• Compared with service members who were never deployed, hazard rates of suicide were lower among the currently deployed (HR 0.50) but significantly higher in the quarters following first deployment (HR 1.51) if deployed in the previous 3 quarters; 1.14 if deployed 4 or more quarters ago.