Exposure to traumatic events may precipitate suicidal ideation and previous research has shown that specific PTSD symptoms, particularly hyperarousal and intrusive thoughts, correlate with suicidal ideation.

To test if gender-specific configurations of PTSD symptoms are predictive of suicidal ideation.

To provide practitioners with gender-specific and refined PTSD symptom indicators that may precipitate suicidal behaviour.

A male group (N = 161) and a female group (N = 56) of South African police officers were assessed by means of the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale and a short version of the Adult Suicide Ideation Questionnaire. Linear and hierarchical regressions were used to determine which PTSD symptom criteria best predicted suicide ideation.

Hyperarousal was the primary predictor of suicide ideation with males (R2 [adjusted] = 0.249), with avoidance added only marginally (2.5%) to the model. For females intrusive thoughts was the primary predictor of suicide ideation (R2 [adjusted] = 0.381), with general problems adding 7.4% to the variance declared in the model. In both cases the contributions of the remaining two symptom types were negligible.

In this study hyperarousal (for males) and intrusive thoughts (for females) significantly correlated with suicide ideation and it is suggested that practitioners be alert to gender-specific symptom groupings as possible indicators of suicidal ideation. This has implications for suicide risk assessment and prevention measures.