Suicidality in men following relationship breakdown: A systematic review and meta-analysis of global data.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Factors underlying the association between intimate relationship breakdown and men's suicidality are poorly understood. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined which men are most vulnerable and the factors underpinning men's suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, and death by suicide following relationship breakdown. We reviewed 75 studies across 30 countries (N ≥ 100 million men). Of these, 29 studies were included in random-effects meta-analyses and the remainder were narratively synthesized. Meta-analyses found separated/divorced men had greater odds of suicidal ideation than married men (k = 7; odds ratio [OR] = 1.64, 95% CI [1.27, 2.13]). Divorced men also had greater odds of suicide attempt (k = 3; OR = 1.73, 95% CI [1.05, 2.85]) and death by suicide (k = 33; OR = 2.82, 95% CI [2.53, 3.15]) than married men. Risk of suicidality appeared greatest in the immediate aftermath of relationship breakdown, as separated men displayed nearly twofold greater odds of suicide than divorced men (k = 10; OR = 1.96, 95% CI [1.42, 2.71]). Men's suicidality following relationship breakdown was also linked to younger age (≤34 years), less than tertiary education, lack of employment, and psychological factors such as loneliness and emotion dysregulation. Study limitations included the following: wide methodological variability in the source literature, precluding meta-analysis of most included studies; inconsistent reporting of demographics prohibiting more detailed meta-analyses within subgroups of men; and a predominant focus on marital separation and divorce, with comparatively little data reflecting nonmarital relationship breakdown in association with suicidality. Opportunities for preventing suicidality following relationship breakdown are discussed, alongside future research to address knowledge gaps regarding factors that interact with relationship breakdown in men's suicidality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.023 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.012 | 0.022 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".