Time-Varying Associations Between Hopelessness, Agitation, Shape/Weight Concerns, Body Connection, Dietary Restraint, and Desire to Kill Self in a Military Sample

Abstract

Suicidal ideation and dietary restraint are prevalent, especially in military samples. Group-level analyses have identified hopelessness, agitation, weight/shape concerns, and interoceptive deficits as potential risk factors for suicidal ideation and dietary restraint. However, limited research has examined how these risk factors ideographically predict suicidal desire and dietary restraint over time, which is the aim of this study. In our military sample, participants (N = 46, Mage = 35.02, 84.8% White, 97.8% not Hispanic/Latine) completed surveys multiple times each day for a month. Time-varying vector autoregressive models were used to generate unique networks for each participant. To interpret the networks, descriptive and qualitative categories were created. Prediction patterns for suicidal desire and dietary restraint were largely idiographic, even amongst participants with similar symptom trajectories for suicidal desire and dietary restraint across the EMA period. These findings highlight that suicidal desire and dietary restraint are complex systems with predictor patterns that are heterogenous across people and over time.