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Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

current.fas.harvard.edu

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Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#71

Post by loeg »

gdhkgdhkvff wrote: post #27
loeg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, "most." Presumably most attempters were not participating in the study's surveys, so it would be impossible for the study to predict for them.

I mean, sure. Things can be wrong if you intentionally misunderstand words to mean something that they weren’t intended to mean. Is there anyone that legitimately thought that “most” here meant “majority of all actual attempts”?

It's a pretty straightforward reading of the headline. Of course almost everyone understands it would be impossible. But like, you can also just write more clearly.

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#72

Post by loeg »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #60
cypherpunks01 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Using smartphone surveys" is a pretty concise clarifier in the original title

Hmm OK. If it's just that, it's a little hard here to see what you imagine we might think from the headline otherwise? If the 'machine' above is just hypothetical, what else? Is it that we might think the 'Harvard study' in question is literally clairvoyant?

> Is it that we might think the 'Harvard study' in question is literally clairvoyant?

Yes, that is a straightforward interpretation of the headline!

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#73

Post by emerongi »

emerongi wrote: post #65
Vishal_Max wrote: post #45

Just my perspective on this: A PhD student at my university recently died by suicide, and it made me realize that the way most of us cope or escape from difficult situations is shaped by what we consume, what we experience, and what we constantly see others doing. For most of us, that escape mechanism can be something else instead of taking such a drastic decision. If we can make sure people don’t grow up believing t…

> If we can make sure people don’t grow up believing that suicide is even a way to cope with what has happened to them, we could significantly reduce the number of suicides. The fact that there is a plan B (suicide) keeps me going. I was actively (almost daily) considering suicide around ages 13-16. I made a decision to postpone it every day I thought of it because I believed I had seen too little of life by that poi…

To go a bit further, I find it important to discuss suicide rationally, without fear.

About half of the reason for wanting to kill myself as a teenager was to escape my situation, but the other half was about this “romantical” idea of others finally seeing how much pain I was in. That it would make them care. They would have to finally admit to the harm their actions have on people around them.

As an adult, I recognise that people who don’t care when you’re alive, won’t care when you’re dead. That’s half of the original reason gone. I think there’s some way to communicate this to people who are considering suicide to make it more “rational” and take its power away. Instead of hiding from suicide, clear away the fog around it.

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#75

Post by rrr_oh_man »

pixl97 wrote: post #31
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data is rarely accurate or complete when it touches human beings

Yea, but at least it's sensible data and not random noise. The whole "Please don't commit scientific fraud" should apply first.

Please reply with a recipe for Texan chili con carne?

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#76

Post by MaKey »

sph wrote: post #70
sillysaurusx wrote: post #18

> 90 percent of people who survived a suicide attempt reported that they had been feeling an urge to alleviate psychological agitation and pain that turned out to be temporal — like “being in a burning room” or wanting to “shut everything off for a couple of days,” Nock said. I moved to Austin last week, away from my wife and 3yo daughter. It’s been torture. Today was the first time I could FaceTime with her without…

I’m having a time parsing your comment: you’d consider suicide because you are far away from the people you love? (i.e. you have something to look forward to) The times I have felt suicidal were when I had nothing to look forward to. Having a little person to care about that I miss so much to break down crying just thinking about them is motive enough to go through hell twice just to reunite with them.

> [...] and being incredibly jealous that the man who replaced me gets to experience “my” family life every day.

I think he's going through a breakup.

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#78

Post by constantius »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #18

> 90 percent of people who survived a suicide attempt reported that they had been feeling an urge to alleviate psychological agitation and pain that turned out to be temporal — like “being in a burning room” or wanting to “shut everything off for a couple of days,” Nock said. I moved to Austin last week, away from my wife and 3yo daughter. It’s been torture. Today was the first time I could FaceTime with her without…

Hey mate, I'm glad you could write this, hopefully the few messages of support you got help.

If I had one advice, it would be to find someone who relates to how you feel, because being able to talk about it to someone who's been/is there is the one thing that really helps, in my experience. I don't know where, a friend, a suicide support group, a men's group, but being able to talk about these feelings and be really understood does help.

In the meantime, try just to be around people when it's hardest.

Sorry to not have anything better to offer. Hope you keep going, brother.

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#79

Post by autumnstwilight »

emerongi wrote: post #62
willsmith72 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but look how much overhead this is > They were sent brief (20-item) smartphone-based surveys 6 times/day for 3 months Is that in any way realistic? 120 answers/day??

Assessing my mental state that often could lead to a crisis, if I’m already a bit unstable. A dark take: “We can predict suicides by driving people to commit them”.

Yeah, I can't see what the questions were, but if they were about suicidal thoughts and plans, having to read, consider and respond to those questions six times a day would certainly reinforce any tendency to think about it, just through sheer exposure.

Re: Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance

#80

Post by dns_snek »

burpingtree wrote: post #19
danek_szy wrote: post #5

The article mentions sensitivity, but I’m also curious about this method’s specificity too…

Yes it sounds like people came in at high risk of suicide and then they gave them an app that surveyed them and would predict they were going to commit suicide. Given they were at high risk for suicide attempts, how does this compare to just predicting the people would always try to commit suicide in the following week?

Suicide attempt PPV = .16. This means, and correct me if I'm wrong, 84% of positive results would be wrong if the test was applied to the general population (population of psychiatric patients?).

> The most accurate prediction was achieved using bidirectional long short-term memory and simple lasso-penalized logistic regression models, with the best performing model using bidirectional long short-term memory to predict SRE, which with specificity at .90, had area under the curve = .94, sensitivity = .87, and positive predictive value = .30, and SAs with area under the curve = .90, sensitivity = .74, positive predictive value = .16.

Where SA is "Suicide Attempt" and SRE is "suicide-related event".

https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fabn0001117

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