ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1426056
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Cost of War: Sociological Approaches to the Societal and Individual Wounds of CombatView all 22 articles
Predictor Analysis of Suicidal Behaviour in the German Armed Forces: A Problem of Middle-aged Men or an Impact of Military Deployments Abroad?
Provisionally accepted
Gerd-Dieter Willmund1,2*
Heß Julius3
Christian Helms1,2
Amy B. Adler4
Isabel Schoensee1,2
Manuela Hoffmann5Anja Seiffert3Peter Lutz Zimmermann1,6
Ulrich Wesemann1,2- 1Centre For Military Mental Health, Bundeswehr Hospital Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- 2Military Hospital Berlin, Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
- 3Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences, Potsdam, Germany
- 4Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States
- 5Bundeswehr Institute For Prevention Medicine, Koblenz, Germany
- 6Federal Ministry of Defence, Berlin, Germany
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Background: Although suicidality in the armed forces has been the subject of considerable international scientific research, studies mostly focus on lethal suicidal behaviour. The aim of the current study is to examine contributing factors for both, lethal and non-lethal suicidal behaviour in the German armed forces.Methods: The statistical analysis of this retrospective risk-factor assessment study used the data of a database of all suicides (N=107) and known non-lethal suicidalbehaviour (N=196) in active military personnel of the German Bundeswehr between 2010 and 2014 (s-registry). This data was compared with a representative survey within the German Armed Forces (N=1549), which was conducted in the middle of the analysed period in 2012.The main hypothesis was to investigate if military missions abroad do influence suicidal behaviour in the German Bundeswehr.Results: A fully adjusted logistic regression model was used to estimate the role of military missions abroad and other covariates as a risk factor for suicidal behaviour. In the overall model (R²=.24; p=.000), the following risk factors from the area of non-lethal suicidal behaviour (NLSB) and from the area of lethal suicidal behaviour (LSB) emerged: Military personnel who identified as single(NLSB: OR=3.9; p=.000), LSB OR=6.0; p=.000), with less than 2 deployments abroad (NLSB: OR=4.0; p=.000; LSB: OR=2.0; p=.032), with lower secondary school or less (NLSB: OR=3.9; p=.000; LSB: OR=2.0; p=. 032), as well as staff during their two years of military service (NLSB:
Keywords: Suicide, suicide prevention, military, mental disorder, combat
Received: 30 Apr 2024; Accepted: 23 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Willmund, Julius, Helms, Adler, Schoensee, Hoffmann, Seiffert, Zimmermann and Wesemann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Gerd-Dieter Willmund, Centre For Military Mental Health, Bundeswehr Hospital Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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