Skip to main content
To the Editor: We welcome the opportunity to address briefly the interesting issues raised by Dr. Mammen and colleagues in response to our article. We disagree with the suggestion by Dr. Mammen et al. that our conclusions are the result of inappropriate statistical tests. We are aware that in statistical analyses involving small groups it is important when employing a two-sample t test that the data are normally distributed. For larger groups, however, it is not so critical, because of the central-limit theorem. With our data, for example, the group sizes were large enough and the distributions were sufficiently nonpathological that the two-sample t test worked well. We confirmed this by using the “double-bootstrap method” to carry out an extremely accurate version of the t test (1). This calculation demonstrated that the ordinary two-sample t test works sufficiently well with these data to be considered an appropriate statistical test. Moreover, using a nonparametric test, as Dr. Mammen et al. suggest, yielded the same result, as use of the Wilcoxon rank sum test resulted in p=0.01 and p=0.005 for hopelessness and suicidal ideation, respectively.
We agree that the results of clinical association studies are frequently open to more than one interpretation and require replication, as we suggested. Our cross-sectional finding, that a greater score on the Reasons for Living Inventory may protect against the emergence of suicidal behavior during depression, is being tested in a prospective longitudinal study in which multivariate statistical analyses will be used. We look forward to completing and reporting on our findings in due course. In the meantime, we encourage researchers to consider developing clinical treatments to possibly enhance reasons for living during depression that may then be tested to see if they protect against the emergence of suicidal behavior.

Reference

1.
Hall P: The Bootstrap and Edgeworth Expansion. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1992

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
American Journal of Psychiatry
Pages: 1332
PubMed: 11481180

History

Published online: 1 August 2001
Published in print: August 2001

Authors

Details

MARIA A. OQUENDO, M.D.
GRETCHEN L. HAAS, PH.D.
STEVEN P. ELLIS, PH.D.
J. JOHN MANN, M.D.
New York, N.Y.

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

Citations

Export Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.

Format
Citation style
Style
Copy to clipboard

View Options

View options

PDF/EPUB

View PDF/EPUB

Get Access

Login options

Already a subscriber? Access your subscription through your login credentials or your institution for full access to this article.

Personal login Institutional Login Open Athens login
Purchase Options

Purchase this article to access the full text.

PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry

PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry

Not a subscriber?

Subscribe Now / Learn More

PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5-TR® library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development.

Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.).

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share article link

Share