Rates of suicide in the US Army continue to rise, and by some accounts exceed the general population. This increase has renewed efforts to identify protective factors that may inform novel suicide prevention strategies. Previous research has demonstrated that a sense of purpose in life and perceived cohesion with military peers are related to a reduction in the severity of suicidal ideation (SI). Additionally, research in military samples supports decreased SI in Soldiers who endorse that their leaders convey a sense of purpose and meaning in their shared mission. However, no work has investigated whether these leadership styles relate to a sense of felt purpose and perceived cohesion in Soldiers and thus the indirect effect of these leadership styles on SI. Active duty Army Soldiers (n = 1,160) completed self-report measures of purpose in life (PiL), perceived cohesion, ethical leadership, loneliness, and SI. Indirect effect analyses were conducted to determine how leadership behaviors indirectly relate to SI through PiL and perceived cohesion. Indirect effect analyses revealed that ethical leadership had an indirect effect on reduced SI through increased PiL. In the same parallel indirect effect analysis, ethical leadership was related to less SI through increased perceived cohesion and decreased loneliness sequentially. Enhanced leadership training that effectively increases Soldier purpose may be an important primary prevention tool to mitigate the effect of suicide risk factors. This primary prevention strategy may help augment existing suicide surveillance and clinical prevention efforts to reduce Soldier risk for suicide.

Subjective well-being is a positive psychological construct that has important implications for the U.S. Military's goal to develop service members' strengths and support their overall thriving and downstream resilience. Despite this, the concept of well-being has not been well studied in military populations who have unique work demands, stressors, and autonomy/agency in daily life compared to civilians. To address this shortcoming in the literature, the present study assessed Ryff's measures of psychological well-being (PWB) in 1,333 U.S. service members prior to the deployments in the Middle East. Various methods attempting to validate the theoretical model purported by Ryff were unsuccessful, and exploratory factor analyses did not result in a novel model for this population. Future research should continue to evaluate proposed models of soldier well-being and propose novel theories, as well as measures, to assess this important construct. Implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).