Matthew Podlogar

• PhD
• Medical Professional at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

The use of self-report surveys for suicide risk screening is a key first step in identifying currently suicidal individuals and connecting them with appropriate follow-up assessment and care. Online methods for suicide risk screening are becoming more common, yet they present a number of complexities compared with traditional methods. This study ai...

Major depressive symptoms are associated with increased risk for suicidal ideation and behavior. Suicide is fearsome; as such, the interpersonal theory of suicide proposes that individuals who engage in suicidal behavior possess not only the desire to die, but also the acquired capability (AC) for suicide. This study examined whether major depressi...

Recent theories posit diverse mechanisms of suicide risk, yet many models converge on one variable—hopelessness. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of hopelessness in the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (ITS), specifically, whether hopelessness moderated the interaction of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness when pred...

Given the high rates of suicide among military personnel and the need to characterize suicide risk factors associated with mental health service use, this study aimed to identify suicide-relevant factors that predict: (1) treatment engagement and treatment adherence, and (2) suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, and major depressive episodes in a mi...

Depression and suicidal ideation are highly intertwined constructs. A common practice in suicide research is to control for depression when predicting suicidal ideation, yet implications of this practice have not been subjected to sufficient empirical scrutiny. We explore what, precisely, is represented in a suicidal ideation variable with depressi...

The Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS) is one of the most used and empirically supported suicide risk assessment measures for behavioral health clinicians and researchers. However, the 19-item BSS is a relatively long measure and can take 5 to 10 minutes to administer. This study used Item Response Theory (IRT) techniques across two samples of m...

Humans are eusocial, a term used to describe “colony life” systems in highly social species. Eusocial features include specialized defense and cooperative care of the young, self-sacrificial characteristics that aid in the survival of the extended community. A eusociality-based perspective on suicide views suicide as a dysfunction of the self-sacri...

Introduction Few evidence-based options exist for outpatient treatment of patients at risk of suicide, and to-date almost all research has focused on individually delivered psychotherapy. Group therapy for veterans at risk of suicide is a promising alternative. Methods Thirty veterans receiving care at an urban Veterans Affairs Medical Center in t...

Suicide risk screening depends heavily on accurate patient self-report. However, past negative experiences with mental health care may contribute to intentional nondisclosure of suicide risk during screening. This study investigated among 282 men older than age 50 whether likelihood for current explicit risk nondisclosure was associated with previo...

Suicide is a leading cause of morbidity, yet a significant challenge to receiving adequate support is an unwillingness to disclose mental health issues. The current study explores reasons for nondisclosure among emergency personnel, a population at risk of developing mental health problems. Twenty-nine police, ambulance, and fire and rescue agencie...

The “Death/Life” Implicit Association Test (d-IAT) is a reaction-time task which has been associated with past and future suicidal behavior; in some work, the association has been incremental to explicit self-report of suicide risk. Proposed mechanisms for this association relate to one’s unwillingness or inability to completely disclose or be intr...

Inaccurate disclosure of information is a significant limitation when relying on self-report for suicide risk screening. However, allowing for an explicit nondisclosure response option in screening items (e.g., “prefer not to disclose”) may ultimately improve follow-up assessment validity. This study investigated explicit nondisclosure in suicide r...

Purpose – The phenomenon of murder-suicide (aka. homicide-suicide) makes a sizeable impact on current public perceptions and policies regarding mental illness and risk for violence. However, within the past 25 years, our understanding of murder-suicide has remained relatively stable, and so has our relative inability to reliably predict and prevent...

The Military Suicide Research Consortium (MSRC) developed a 57-item questionnaire assessing suicide risk factors, referred to as the Common Data Elements (CDEs), in order to facilitate data sharing and improve collaboration across independent studies. All studies funded by MSRC are required to include the CDEs in their assessment protocol. The CDEs...

Over the past decade, the interpersonal theory of suicide has contributed to substantial advances in the scientific and clinical understanding of suicide and related conditions. The interpersonal theory of suicide posits that suicidal desire emerges when individuals experience intractable feelings of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingn...

Anxiety and depression diagnoses are associated with suicidal thoughts and behaviours. However, a categorical understanding of these associations limits insight into identifying dimensional mechanisms of suicide risk. This study investigated anxious and depressive features through a lens of suicide risk, independent of diagnosis. Latent class analy...

Objective: To characterize individuals' prior experiences with being asked whether they are having thoughts of suicide and to understand factors that affected their response accuracy. Method: Undergraduates (N = 306) reporting a lifetime history of suicidal ideation completed a web-based survey about their experiences being probed about suicidal...

Suicide has become an issue of great concern within the U.S. military in recent years, with recent reports indicating that suicide has surpassed combat related deaths as the leading cause of death. One concern regarding suicide risk in the military is that existing self-report measures allow service members to conceal or misrepresent current suicid...

Background: Insomnia is a robust correlate of suicidal ideation and behavior. Preliminary research has identified thwarted belongingness (c.f. social disconnection) as an explanatory link between insomnia and suicidal ideation. Objectives: This study replicates and extends previous findings using both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs in...

Sleep disturbances are robust correlates of suicidal ideation and behavior. However, less is known about the mechanisms underlying this association. Preliminary research has identified thwarted belongingness (c.f. loneliness) as an explanatory link between insomnia and suicidal ideation. This study aimed to replicate previous findings in three demo...

Background: Research with human subjects represents a critical avenue for suicide prevention efforts; however, such research is not without its ethical and practical challenges. Specifically, given the nature of research with individuals at elevated risk for suicide (e.g., increased concerns regarding participant safety, adverse events, liability),...

Objective: Although the interpersonal theory of suicide may explain the elevated suicide risk among military service members, past explorations have been equivocal. This study aimed to investigate the propositions of the interpersonal theory in a sample of U.S. Army recruiters. Method: Participants (N = 3,428) completed self-report measures asse...

Individuals at risk for suicide experience periods of emotional, enduring, and vivid thoughts about their death by suicide and frequently report violent daydreams about death. Daydreaming is associated with forgetfulness and memory impairments. However, no studies have examined whether suicidal ideation is associated with deficits in everyday memor...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature on mass murder and amok, and the relationship of these phenomena to murder-suicide as well as to determine future research directions. Design/methodology/approach – Research literature on mass murder, amok, and murder-suicide was reviewed in the context of recent developments...

Research regarding the quality of behavioral health care for American Indian (AI) children and adolescents is extremely limited, and no study has considered the qualitative perspectives of the AI children receiving such services or that of their families. This pilot study investigated AI patient and family perspectives of what quality of care means...

Objective The current study aimed to investigate whether perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness (i.e., suicide risk factors) were associated with excessive reassurance seeking (a behavior linked to rejection). It was predicted that perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness would predict higher levels of excessive reassurance...