(PS8-32) Disability-related Accommodations and Suicide Risk Among College Students with Disabilities

Abstract Text: People with disabilities have higher rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors than the general population, although factors underlying this relation are still under investigation. In particular, little research has examined supportive services for people with disabilities as a protective factor against suicidality in this underserved group. Thus, examining the potential life-saving role of disability support services is an important step toward better understanding suicidality and suicide prevention among people with disabilities.
The current study examined the relation between disability-related accommodations and suicide risk among college students with a self-reported disability, with depressive symptoms as a possible mediator. Data came from a survey of 1,989 undergraduate students from a large university in the Southern United States. Out of the total sample, 737 students (37%) reported that they had a disability, and thus were included for the rest of the analyses. These students (24% cisgender men, 71% cisgender women, 5% other genders) primarily identified as Caucasian/White (84%), with 9% identifying as Black/African-American and 7% as another race. A large portion (24%) identified as a minority sexual orientation. Students were able to report more than one disability. The most common disabilities were mental illness (53%), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (44%), blindness or visual impairment (10%), specific learning disability (6%), and hearing impairment (5%). Only 19% of the students with disabilities reported receiving accommodations from the university’s Disability Resource Center.
Depressive symptoms were measured with the 21-item Depression and Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS 21). Suicide risk was measured using the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (total score). A mediated linear regression model with disability accommodations as the independent variable, suicide risk as the dependent variable, and depressive symptoms as a mediator was conducted using PROCESS for SPSS.
Students who received disability accommodations had lower depressive symptomatology than students who did not receive accommodations. Higher depressive symptomatology was associated with higher suicide risk. There was a direct effect of accommodations on suicide risk, such that students with accommodations tended to have lower suicide risk than those without accommodations (partially standardized direct effect = -0.18, p = .02). There was also an indirect effect of accommodations on suicide risk, such that depressive symptoms partially mediated the relation between accommodations and suicide risk (partially standardized indirect effect = -0.12). When students who only reported mental illness (without another disability) were excluded from analyses, the total effect of accommodations on suicide risk remained significant (p = .02).
These findings highlight the importance of disability accommodations in students’ well-being. Interventions focused on increasing the accessibility of accommodations, decreasing the stigma of support services, and improving awareness of disability-related services could potentially reduce suicide risk in this population and warrant further investigation.