# The Role of Medications in Predicting Suicide-Related Outcomes and Unintended Death in Older Veterans

> **NIH VA I01** · VETERANS AFFAIRS MED CTR SAN FRANCISCO · 2022 · —

## Abstract

Little is known about the role of medications in predicting suicide-related outcomes and unintended death in
older Veterans. Veterans 50 years and older have the highest number of lives lost to suicide, make up the
majority (> 70%) of the Veteran population, and are highly likely to experience conditions (e.g., chronic pain,
sleep disorders, musculoskeletal) associated with commonly prescribed medications that are potential markers
for suicide risk (hereafter referred to as “high-risk” drug categories, including benzodiazepines, sedative-
hypnotics, opioids, antidepressants, and antiepileptics). The role of these medications in relationship to risk of
suicide and unintended death in older Veterans is likely complex and, yet, extremely informative. Simply
access to “high-risk” medications, similar to access to firearms, may increase risk. Moreover, medications may
be causally linked where central nervous system-acting medications increase vulnerability to risk of attempting
suicide. In addition, the type and amount of medication use can serve as a valuable marker of the presence
and severity of psychiatric symptoms and associated emotional and mental distress, in ways that diagnostic
codes alone are unable to capture. It is also likely that polypharmacy is an important indicator of a complex of
comorbidities that increases risk of suicide. All-in-all there are multiple potential pathways where medications
may be strongly associated with suicide risk in ways not fully captured by other predictors. Thus, information
on medication use could substantially enhance our ability to identify older Veterans at high risk of suicide,
above and beyond known risk factors such as the presence of psychiatric diagnoses. This could provide
extremely valuable products by giving us tools to better identify high-risk Veterans, who could then be targeted
for enhanced screening and early intervention to prevent suicide. With mounting concern regarding
misclassification of suicides as accidental deaths by drug overdose, better understanding the impact of
medications on death by unintentional injury is also important to informing suicide prevention efforts.
Furthermore, examining associations by such factors as age, gender, race/ethnicity, homelessness, Vietnam
Veteran status, service connected disability, posttraumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury supports
the Department of Veterans Affairs' mission to meet the needs of these vulnerable groups. To this end, the
primary goal of our study is to determine the role of medications as prognostic factors, above and beyond other
factors, in predicting risk of suicide and unintended death in older Veterans. We propose in this current
application to add new questions on medication prescribing and use to an existing CSR&D Merit Award project
(CX001119; PI: Byers), which has formed a unique cohort for late-life suicide research. This cohort includes all
Veterans (~5,000,000) who used VA health care services, were init...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10295160
- **Project number:** 5I01CX001119-07
- **Recipient organization:** VETERANS AFFAIRS MED CTR SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Amy Lynn Byers
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2015-07-01 → 2023-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10295160

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10295160, The Role of Medications in Predicting Suicide-Related Outcomes and Unintended Death in Older Veterans (5I01CX001119-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10295160. Licensed CC0.

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