Mental health

Psychological functioning and well-being considered across relevant domains and contexts. Absence of a particular diagnosis is informative but does not exhaust positive functioning, and success in one domain need not establish equal adaptation in another.

Suicide is death resulting from self-directed injurious behavior undertaken with intent to die. A nonfatal attempt and suicidal ideation are distinct outcomes and should not be combined into a single research variable.^[ref]

Suicide has multiple interacting contributors. An association with a mental disorder does not mean that every person with that diagnosis has the same risk or that a death can be explained from one diagnostic label.^[ref]

Suicidal ideation refers to thoughts about or consideration of suicide. Thoughts, intent and behavior are related but distinct measurements; the presence of one does not uniquely specify the others.^[ref]

In research, the wording of questions and the period being assessed affect what is counted. A lifetime measure and a report about the past week answer different questions and should not be treated as interchangeable prevalence estimates.