David Lester

Stockton University · Department of Psychology

Formal models of the economy and suicide: Bijou Yang 1-13 Suicide in firefighters: David Lester 14-29 Suicide in those with Alzheimer’s disease: David Lester 29-31 Methodological problems in ecological studies of suicide: David Lester 32-39 A review of research on suicide in 2004: David Lester 40-110 Schema therapy and suicide: Sevginar Vatan & Da...

The current study sought to investigate the relationship of religiosity with subjective well-being in a primarily Muslim sample of college students in Egypt (N = 294). Six scales measuring several constructs related to subjective well-being, including mental health, self-efficacy, love of life, optimism, well-being, and life satisfaction, were admi...

This is the latest issue of Suicide Studies: Suicide Studies, 2024, 5(6) with articles by David Lester and his colleagues.

Aims: While there is substantial literature on gender and research productivity, bearing mixed results, no study is available for suicidology. The present investigation fills this gap and focuses on an influential elite. Methods: Data are taken from the Web of Science (WoS). They refer to the most prolific suicidologists (N = 116) with 70 or more w...

Why are we failing to prevent suicide? David Lester 2-3 How should Durkheim’s theory of suicide be modified? David Lester 4-53 A review of research on suicide in 2000: David Lester 54-109 A review of research using Lester’s Helplessness, Hopelessness Haplessness (HHH) Scale: David Lester 110-116 Guilt and suicide: a study of suicide notes: David L...

Articles published originally in Suicidology Online by David Lester are reprinted here.

Background Rewards can both validate and promote the stature of a researcher in their field. Research has been mixed on the role of gender as a predictor of receiving scholarly awards, but much of it lacks control for research excellence, and awards in interdisciplinary associations have been neglected. This study fills these gaps for suicidology....

Key digested message Fifty years of research has failed to improve our ability to predict suicide, and false positives remain a serious problem. It is suggested that developing comprehensive typologies of suicides may further our understanding of suicide better than more research on predicting suicide.

Estimates of the suicide rate in Egypt range from 0.16 per 100,000 per year to 4.4 with a decline in the suicide rate over the last 20 years. Most studies have found that the modal suicide was male, aged 20–30, from the middle class and an urban resident. Different methods for the act have been used, including drugs, toxins, poisons, burning, firea...

The is the latest issue of Suicide Studies. Suicide Studies, 2024, 5(3).

Chapter 1: What are we trying to explain? Chapter 2: The inadequacy of multiple regression Chapter 3: A harsh critique of research on suicide: What do we know? Steps Toward a New Theory of Suicide Chapter 4: A two-self theory of suicide Chapter 5: An aside: The façade self Chapter 6: Another aside: Can we trust suicide notes as sources of infor...

Chapter 1: What are we trying to explain? Chapter 2: The inadequacy of multiple regression Chapter 3: A harsh critique of research on suicide: What do we know? Steps Toward a New Theory of Suicide Chapter 4: A two-self theory of suicide Chapter 5: An aside: The façade self Chapter 6: Another aside: Can we trust suicide notes as sources of infor...

A review of research on suicide in 1998: David Lester 2-61 The death of suicidology in Canada: Antoon Leenaars 62-70 Anomie and suicide: Bijou Yang & David Lester 71-84 The relationship between unemployment and suicide: David Lester & Bijou Yang 75-80 Brief biographies: David Lester 81-110 Does artificial intelligence become more intelligent over...

Objective: Suicidality in young adults is a serious and growing clinical and social problem. The theory of psychosocial ego development assumes that identity and intimacy are two key factors for adaptation and vulnerability in early adulthood. The aim of the present study was to test whether psychosocial identity and intimacy are related to suicida...

What have we learned about suicide: A harsh critique of theory and research: David Lester Reconstruction of suicide from the perspective of dominant ideology in Turkish cinema: Cangul Akdas

Empathy is an important social construct that has been defined in many ways by different authors, resulting in development of several questionnaires. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is one of the most used self-report scales to measure empathy in children, adolescents, and adults. However, studies have reported contradictory results about...

In a study of Iranian students, the Entrapment Scale had good reliability and validity.

Research on the association between religiosity and personality with Arab participants is rare. The aim of the present study was to explore this association using a sample (N = 623) of college students from Sudan. They responded to the Arabic Scale of Intrinsic Religiosity and the Arabic Big-Five Personality Inventory. The results indicated that me...

Introduction According to the gender paradox,in suicidology an important sex difference has been reported with a preponderance of females in nonfatal suicidal behavior and a preponderance of males in completed suicide.The lethality of suicidal behavior in females is lower most likely because males choose more violent suicide methods.Furthermore,wom...

Suicide is a major public health problem around the world, with an estimated 800,000 deaths from suicide each year. Research suggests that the ever-growing use of the Internet is contributing to and facilitating suicide. A thematic analysis was conducted on the final communications of three individuals aged between 18 and 21 to obtain an understand...

Sylvia Plath, born in the United States but who died by suicide in England, left a body of work that illuminates some of the motivations for her choice. Her novel The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical and covers the period as an undergraduate when she was hospitalized and given electroconvulsive “therapy.” Her poems are personal and intense and pro...

Prior research has suggested that the use of social media could be associated with psychopathology (e.g., depression and anxiety symptoms). To measure social anxiety associated with social media use, Alkis et al. (2017) developed the Social Anxiety Scale for Social Media Users (SAS-SMU). The aims of the present study were to investigate the factor...

Abstract: The present study was designed to compare the content of 113 suicide notes from attempted suicides, completed suicides and a nonsuicidal group asked to write possible suicide notes. The content analysis examined formal, syntactical and grammatical characteristics, as well as speech patterns and verbal expressions. The letters from attempt...

Prejudice: a window to the suicidal mind: Antoon A. Leenaars. 2-13 General practitioners and suicide prevention: Zoltán Rihmer: 14-17 The association of measures on Angyal’s biopositive and bionegative system principles with other constructs and associations with suicidality: David Lester 18-24 What does artificial intelligence know about suicide:...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine why an attempt at suicide does not always indicate the beginning of a life with poor mental health. Design/methodology/approach Case studies, supplemented by follow-up studies of attempted suicides. Findings One of the strongest predictors of a healthy life after the suicide attempt was found to be...

Purpose This essay aims to describe how the author began his career as a suicidologist and his style that made him so productive. Design/methodology/approach The author used autobiographical details to illustrate the elements of his career. Findings Childhood experiences include sleeping in air raid shelter from 1942 to 1945 in London (UK), while...

This issue of Suicide Studies contains a review by David Lester of research on murder-suicide.

Three evolutionary theories of suicide and their irrelevance for individual suicides in modern society: David Lester 2-3 The Suicidal Behavior Questionnaire Revised (SBQ-R): Validation in Iranian psychiatric outpatients: Mahboubeh Dadfar, John F. Gunn III, & David Lester 4-14 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for death anxiety among Iranian females...

Background The reduction of multiple psychiatric hospitalizations is an important clinical challenge in mental health care. In fact, psychiatric re-hospitalization negatively affects the quality of life and the life expectancy of patients with psychiatric disorders. For these reasons, identifying predictors of re-hospitalization is important for be...

According to the gender paradox in suicidology, an important sex difference has been reported with a preponderance of females in nonfatal suicidal behavior and a preponderance of males in completed suicide. Furthermore, females and males present different risk factors for suicide. The present study explored possible clinical differences between mal...

The aim of the study was to explore the association between Belief in Day of Judgment (BDJ) and belief in locus of control (LCS) in samples from three nations: Iran, Turkey and the USA. A scale devised by Beshai and Lester to measure Belief in a Day of Judgment (BDJS) and Multidimensional Locus of Control Scale (MLCS) for internal, powerful others,...

Suicide risk is a multifaceted phenomenon, and many risk factors are involved in its complexity. In the last few decades, mental health apps have spread, providing economic and affordable strategies to prevent suicide. Therefore, the aim of this review is to identify original studies on mobile apps that target suicidal crises. The review follows PR...

The present research studied 2570 college students from seven countries: Egypt, Algeria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran, India and Turkey. The aims were: (a) to compare love of life mean scores between the seven samples, (b) to examine sex-related differences in love of life, and (c) to explore the principal components of the Love of Life Scale (LLS). The h...

The present research studied 2570 college students from seven countries: Egypt, Algeria, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran, India and Turkey. The aims were: (a) to compare love of life mean scores between the seven samples, (b) to examine sex-related differences in love of life, and (c) to explore the principal components of the Love of Life Scale (LLS). The h...

Earlier studies have shown that self-criticism is a robust correlate of suicidal behavior (SB) and suicidal ideation (SI). However, research results regarding the relationship between dependency and SB/SI are mixed. Several studies have also shown that depressive symptoms mediate the relationship between dependency and/or self-criticism and SB/SI....

The aim of the study was to predict disability, psychological wellbeing, and somatic health in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with the mediating variable of religiosity. A sample of 128 patients was recruited, and were administered the Expanded Disability Status Scale, the World Health Organization-5 Well-Being Index, the Patient Health Questionn...

Background Decriminalizing suicide may decrease overall suicide rates because then individuals who are at risk of suicide would be more willing to seek help from the community and from mental health professionals, therefore enabling early interventions for preventing suicidality. We aimed to examine the suicide trends over the last 20 years in 20 c...

Both the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have issued public warnings regarding the increasing rates of scams targeting taxpayers and the high financial loss to governmental bodies and individuals around the globe these scams impact (HMRC 2020a; IRS 2021). However, despite this large impact on the economy, there...

has been claimed that more than 50 Japanese writers in the 20th century died by suicide, more than in other countries. Ten of these writer-suicides are briefly described, and the life of the most well-known (Yukio Mishima) discussed in more detail. It is apparent that the risk factors for suicide (psychiatric disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, and...

Abstract Background This study examines the 20-year trend of suicide in 46 Muslim-majority countries throughout the world and compares their suicide rates and trends with the global average. Ecological-level associations between the proportion of the Muslim population, the age-standardized suicide rates, male-to-female suicide rate ratio, and the H...

Natural disasters have been documented as affecting the mental health of survivors and may result in them dying by suicide. The current review identified all studies on this topic to see to what extent natural disasters result in suicides. A literature search was conducted in the Web of Knowledge, PubMed, and Scopus databases, as well as the refere...

In recent years, individuals have been posting messages of their impending suicide online. The aim of the present study was to examine the videoblog of a 19-year-old which she posted before her suicide to see how many of the IS PATH WARM signs for suicide were present. Two judges agree that 6½ of the 10 warning signs were present. Therefore, it is...

The effect of culture on surviving a suicide attempt: A brief note on bystander responses.

Previous research has shown significant associations between self-rated health and personality. However, these results are inconsistent. This study explored whether the Big Five (BF) personality factors would predict self-rated general physical health. A volunteer convenience sample (601 men; 720 women) of undergraduates at Alexandria University re...

Using data collected with psychological autopsy method, we compared 392 suicides with 416 living controls among adolescents and young adults in rural China. Informants were asked whether the subjects believed in a religion (and which religion) and whether they believed in a life after death. About 7.8% of the suicides believed in a religion compare...

A series of articles on suicide: Sociotropy, autonomy, depression and suicidality: David Lester & Mahboubeh Dadfar The effect of culture on surviving a suicide attempt: a brief note on bystander responses: Imran Hameed & David Lester Warning signs for suicide: an analysis by ethnicity, sex and age: John F. Gunn III & David Lester Exercise and...

Previous research has documented a worldwide pattern in which rates of suicide attempt are higher for females than for males, while mortality rates from suicide are higher for males than for females (NIMH, 2016). Recent studies have documented other characteristics that distinguish suicides and suicide attempters. For example, suicides were mor...

Background It has been claimed that the advent of modern antidepressants has reduced the suicide rate. Aims To examine the correlation between the suicide rate and the prescription of antidepressants. Method A dynamic regression was employed to analyze a 73-month-long, monthly time series between 2010 and 2016 in Hungary. The independent variable...

Italy has the third-largest immigrant population of European Union countries, but only a few research papers have examined suicide risk in immigrant psychiatric patients in Italy. The main aim of this paper was to compare suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in a sample of 304 psychiatric patients. We included 152 immigrant patients matched with...

Interview with a survivor: Tim: David Lester 20-31 Methodological unsound research on suicide is no longer acceptable: David Lester 32-36 Do suicidal individuals have more complexity in their reasons for living? David Lester, Marco Innamorati & Maurizio Pompili 37-41 Using single-item measures to predict suicidality: Ahmed M. Abdel-Khalek & Dav...

RESEARCH METHODS FOR SUICIDOLOGISTS David Lester Contents Chapter 1 Why we conduct research 4 Chapter 2 The hypothesis 9 Chapter 3 Variables and their measurement 13 Chapter 4 Choosing subjects for the research 19 Chapter 5 Correlational research designs 23 Chapter 6 Experimental research designs 26 Chapter 7 Drawing conclusions from research 29...

Suicídio e homicídio são conhecidos problemas de saúde pública. O objetivo desse trabalho foi avaliar a relação entre suicídio, homicídio e variáveis sociodemográficas num estudo ecológico em Minas Gerais. Os dados foram coletados pelo Ministério da Saúde e pelo Censo Nacional, agregados por microrregiões. Utilizaram-se correlação e regressão linea...

Background: Suicide is a preventable cause of death. Examining suicide rates and trends are important in shaping national suicide prevention strategies. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to analyze age-standardized suicide trends of Malaysia between 2000 and 2019 using the WHO Global Health Estimates data, and to compare the 2019 rate wi...

The different types of suicidal behavior are defined, and basic epidemiological data on suicide rates are provided. In general, men have higher suicide rates than women. Explanations of national differences in suicide rates are discussed: (1) the composition of society (the extent to which the society has a large proportion of individuals at high r...

Emotion dysregulation (ED) can e considered a psychopathological transdiagnostic dimension, the presence of which should be reliably screened in clinical settings. The aim of the current study was to validate the Italian version of the Emotion Dysregulation Scale-short (EDS-s), a brief self-report tool assessing emotion dysregulation, in a non-clin...

Suicide is a cause of early mortality in nearly 5% of patients with schizophrenia, and 25–50% of patients with schizophrenia attempt suicide in their lifetime. Evidence points to numerous individual, clinical, social, and psychological risk factors for suicide in patients with schizophrenia. Although recognizing suicidal risk factors in schizophren...

In the 1990s and early 2000s, John Connolly interviewed a number of those working in the field of suicidology about their professional and personal life. An effort has been made since then to obtain transcripts of the interviews, after which David Lester has edited them. They were then returned to those interviewed to be edited and approved by them...

The suicide notes of murder-suicides: David Lester and John F. Gunn III 2 Is there a natural suicide rate? An update and review: Bijou Yang & David Lester 5 Thoughts on who are the most influential suicidologists: David Lester 13 Four young women who died by suicide: an examination of their diaries: David Lester & Linda Collins 20 Comment on “An...

A comprehensive understanding of how suicidal risk factors interact with one another to increase the frequency of suicide ideation and attempted suicide is critical for improving theoretical models of suicide and prevention efforts. The aim of the present study was to explore the prediction of suicide ideation formation and its transition to suicid...

Assessment of the lethality of suicide attempts is a neglected topic in the literature in this area. Based on the hypothesis that suicide attempters who choose a highly lethal method differ from those who use less lethal methods, we analyzed the characteristics of suicide attempters who used different suicide methods to determine demographic and cl...

Patients who have experienced emotional abuse and neglect often develop psychiatric disorders in adulthood. However, whether emotional abuse, neglect, and mentalization abilities relate to one another and the role of possible mediators of this relationship in psychiatric patients are still unknown. We evaluated the potential role of affective tempe...

Child sexual abuse is typically studied using reports from the offender and in Western countries. The aim of the present study was to investigate pre- and post-abuse strategies of persons convicted of a sexual offense to children in Turkey using the statements made by the child victims and to frame the results using rational choice theory. A qualit...

Background: Few reports from developing countries have described long-term trends in suicide. Aims: To investigate the age-, sex-, and method-specific trends in suicide over the period 1904–2017 in São Paulo. Method: Mortality data were obtained from SEADE, DATASUS, and PRO-AIM. Results: Suicide peaked in the mid-1910s and mid-1950s, being higher a...

A study of the 48 continental, contiguous American states in 1980, 1990 and 2000 found that, the higher the percentage of left-handers in the states, the lower the suicide rate, and a tendency for homicide rates also to be lower. Suggestions were made for the reasons for these associations.

The aims of the present study were (a) to investigate the psychometric properties and to explore the factorial structure of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), (b) to explore the association of PHQ-9 scores with Loneliness Scale (LS) scores, (c) to determine the severity of symptoms of depression, and (d) to examine sex differences. The PHQ...

Suicide Studies, 2021, 2(3) Contents The end of suicidology continued: David Lester 2 An ecological study of handedness and suicide rates: David Lester & Behnam Tavakkol 6 Nick: Drake: An analysis of the song lyrics of a suicide: David Lester 12 An examination of the lyrics of musicians who died by suicide: John F. Gunn III & David Lester 15...

This book critically reviews research and theories about suicide terrorists and suicide terrorism

Inadequate knowledge of the potential signs and risk factors of suicide negatively affects the ability of healthcare professionals to recognize patients at risk of suicide. The principal aim of the present study is to assess the attitudes and knowledge about suicide in a large sample of mental health professionals. We examined the relationship betw...

Abstract Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the association between food addiction severity (FA) and ADHD symptomatology. Furthermore, we investigated whether emotional distress, and the mentalization deficits could mediate this relationship. Methods Three hundred eighty-five Italian adults (307 women and 78 men) participated in t...

The present study of 2,074 undergraduates at two Chinese universities was designed to identify risk and protective factors for suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation in the past year was reported by 22.3% of the students, a higher percentage than found in previous studies of Chinese and Western university students. Students reporting suicidal ideatio...

There has not been any research reported regarding both suicide ideation and suicide attempts during the COVID-19 pandemic and government lockdown restrictions in Italy, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic. We investigated whether the frequency of suicide ideation and suicide attempts differed between psychiatric patients admitted to...

Articles on suicide by David Lester et al.

A sample of 102 Iranian psychiatric outpatients was selected. For a comparison group, a sample of 72 Iranian university employees was recruited. Participants responded to the Self-Rating Scale for Religiosity and the Self-Rating Scale of Happiness, and the Suicidal Behaviour Questionnaire-Revised. The correlations of religiosity and happiness with...

Introduction: Several features contribute to determining suicide risk. This study was designed with the aim of evaluating whether insight into illness and demoralization are involved in suicide risk (active suicidal ideation or behavior). Methods: For this purpose, in a sample of 100 adult psychiatric inpatients, we used the Columbia Suicide Sev...

The aims of the present study were (a) to develop a Love of Life Model for psychiatric outpatients, (b) to explore correlations for love of life with psychological well-being, depression, somatic health, and spiritual health, and (c) to explore gender-related differences. A sample of 250 Iranian psychiatric outpatients responded to the Love of Life...

A comparison of language use in suicide notes from completers and attempters: Foluso M. Williams Lawal-Solarin, Sandor Fekete & David Lester 2 An analysis of the psychological effects of impending suicide on linguistic patterns: Foluso M. Williams Lawal-Solarin, Donna Barnes & David Lester 6 Recent developments in the study of the psychology of...

Introduction Although several authors have investigated the relationship between demoralization, insight, and suicide risk, the role of these factors in determining suicide risk in patients with psychiatric disorders is still unclear [Berardelli et al., 2019; Costanza et al., 2020]. Objectives The main aim of this study was therefore to determine...

This study was designed to explore the associations between scores on the hysteroid/obsessoid personality scale, depression scores, and suicidal behavior. In a study of 101 undergraduate students, using the Hysteroid/ Obsessoid Questionnaire (HQQ) and the short form of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-13), hysteroid-obsessiod personality scores w...

This study explored the association of the Big Five personality traits (OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) with current depression and a history of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. A sample of 115 undergraduate students in the United States was administered measures of the Beck Depression Invento...