Anxiety symptoms and suicidal Ideation among racially and ethnically minoritized college students: the moderating role of acculturative stress

This study examined the association between anxiety symptoms (i.e., panic/somatic, generalized, separation, social) and suicidal ideation (SI) among racially/ethnically minoritized college students, and the moderating role of acculturative stress. Participants were 508 students (78.3% female (n = 398); mean age =19.61 [SD = 2.08]), self-identifying as racially/ethnically minorized, (61.2% (n = 311) Hispanic/Latinx; 20.7% (n = 105) Black; 12.4% (n = 63) Asian; 3.9% (n = 20) Multiracial; 1.4% (n = 7) Middle Eastern/North African; 0.2% (n = 1) Native American; 0.2% (n = 1) Other), who completed a survey examining mental health and culture. About 16% reported experiencing SI in the past two weeks. Analyses revealed that panic/somatic anxiety symptoms were significantly associated with SI. The relationships between SI and generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, and social anxiety were not significant. Acculturative stress also emerged as a significant predictor of SI and moderated the association between panic/somatic symptoms and SI. Assessing panic/somatic symptoms and acculturative stress may be especially important when assessing suicide risk among minoritized college students.