Cortisol reactivity and suicidal behavior: investigating the role of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responses to stress in suicide attempters and ideators

Highlights • Participants who had made a previous suicide attempt exhibited significantly lower cortisol response to acute stress. • Participants who made an attempt within the past year exhibited a blunted cortisol response compared to participants with a more distant history of attempt. • Participants who had made a suicide attempt and had a family history of suicide also exhibited a blunted cortisol response to stress. • Lower levels of cortisol in response to acute stress were associated with higher levels of suicidal ideation at 1-month follow-up in the suicide attempters group