Factors associated with suicide attempts in female inmates: the hegemony of hopelessness

In this study factors associated with past suicide attempts in female inmates were examined. Female inmate participants (N = 105) were given structured diagnostic assessments of antisocial and borderline personality disorders and substance dependence, as well as measures of depression, hopelessness, problem-focused coping styles, and reasons for living. There was a high lifetime prevalence of past suicide attempts (38.1%). Suicide attempts were positively associated with personality disorders, hopelessness, depression, childhood physical/emotional abuse, and family history of suicide and mood disorders, and negatively associated with income, reasons for living, and problem-focused coping. Controlling for hopelessness, borderline personality disorder and family history of suicide attempts were the only variables that remained uniquely associated with suicide attempts.     

Psychosocial vulnerability, life stress, and suicide ideation in a jail population: a cross-validation study

The purpose of this present investigation was to cross-validate a stress-psychosocial vulnerability model of suicidal ideation and behavior in a jail population. Measures of social alienation, cognitive distortions, adaptive resources, situational (jail environment) stress, depression, hopelessness, and suicide ideation were administered to 146 male inmates at a county jail facility. It was predicted that each of the vulnerability factors, in addition to jail stress, would be significantly related to suicide ideation among inmates. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that psychosocial vulnerability among inmates would interact with jail stress to best explain suicide intent. The result of a multiple-regression analysis, stepwise forward-inclusion algorithm, indicated that 51% of the variation in suicide ideation could be accounted for by the linear combination of low reasons for living, irrational beliefs, jail stress, and loneliness. In addition, when the variables were entered into a hierarchical multiple-regression model, interactions between select psychosocial vulnerability factors and jail stress were found to best explain suicide intent. Results of the study are discussed in terms of the proposed model, and implications for future research and prevention efforts in jail suicide are noted.     

Concurrent validity of a stress-vulnerability model of suicidal ideation and behavior: a follow-up study

A follow-up study to test the concurrent validity of a stress-vulnerability model of suicidal ideation and behavior was conducted. A total of 202 college students (139 females, 63 males) completed self-report measures of life stress, loneliness, depression, dysfunctional cognitions, reasons for living, hopelessness, current suicide ideation, and predictions of future suicide probability. The results of a multiple-regression analysis indicated that 30% of the variation in suicide ideation scores could be accounted for by the linear combination of negative life stress, depression, loneliness, and few reasons for living. The linear combination of current suicide ideation, hopelessness, dysfunctional cognitions, and few reasons for living explained 56% of the variance in self-predicted future suicide probability. The results are interpreted as being supportive of the proposed model.     

Gender differences in the psychosocial correlates of suicidal ideation among adolescents.

Gender differences in the psychosocial correlates of suicidal ideation were studied. A sample of 613 high school students (ages 14-19) completed measures of suicidal ideation, depression, hopelessness, life stress, loneliness, alcohol and drug use, and reasons for living. The results of a discriminant function analysis indicated that males reported higher loneliness and substance abuse scores than females whereas females reported greater suicidal ideation, depression, and reasons for living. The results of multiple regression analyses found that, although the same four variables, depression, hopelessness, substance abuse, and few reasons for living emerged as significant predictors of suicidal ideation in both samples, the predictive equation accounted for more of the variance in ideation scores in females (57%) than in males (46%). In a final analysis a discriminant function analysis of the subscales of the reasons for living inventory revealed that females have a greater fear of death and injury whereas males have a greater fear of social disapproval over having suicidal thoughts. This may account for the greater rate of suicide completing among males. Fear of social disapproval, more anger and impulsivity, and less help-seeking behavior among males are offered as potential variables to explain the observed gender differences.     

Relationship Between Religious Coping and Suicidal Behaviors Among African American Adolescents

This study investigated whether hopelessness and depression were risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors in African American adolescents and looked at whether religious participation and religious coping protected these students from suicidality. Participants were 212 African American high school students (133 females, 79 males). The results of multiple and logistic regression analyses found that hopelessness and depression were risk factors for suicidal ideation and attempts. Religious coping style was significantly related to suicidal behaviors: Self-directed coping was related to increased hopelessness, depression, and suicide attempts, and collaborative coping was related to increased reasons for living. Gender differences were found in symptoms of depression, religious coping style and religious participation. Results provide additional support for suicide interventions to target hopelessness and depressive symptoms and highlight the importance of examining the role of culturally salient variables, such as religious participation and religious coping style, when developing intervention programs for suicide.     

Perfectionism,Hopelessness, And Suicide Ideation: Revisions to Diathesis-Stress and Specific Vulnerability Models

The current study examined variables (daily hassles, self-esteem, dispositional optimism, coping modes, and perceived social support) that could potentially moderate associations between dimensions of perfectionism and current feelings of hopelessness and suicide ideation in university students (144 women; 61 men). Our study revealed several significant findings: (1) socially prescribed perfectionism was a significant predictor of suicide ideation, interpersonal hopelessness, and achievement hopelessness for both women and men; (2) self-oriented perfectionism did not have an independent relation with any of the suicide risk outcome variables in either women or men; (3) other-oriented perfectionism was associated negatively with both current hopelessness, particularly interpersonal hopelessness, and suicide ideation in men; (4) the cluster of proposed moderators accounted for additional unique variance in all suicide risk variables in women but in achievement hopelessness only in men; (5) optimism and social hassles were unique predictors but the results varied as a function of gender and outcome; (6) each perfectionism component interacted with specific moderators to enhance or buffer the link between perfectionism and suicide risk. The findings indicate that self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism are possibly adaptive or maladaptive under certain conditions. Implications for the development of comprehensive, multidimensional, integrated models of the perfectionism–suicide risk link and for prevention and treatment in perfectionists at risk of suicide are discussed.

Distinctiveness as a marker of identity formation

Individual distinctiveness is theorized to characterize an adaptive identity, but its importance remained underexplored. In two studies, we investigated the nomological networks of two common conceptualizations of distinctiveness: general and comparative distinctiveness. We compared these to the network of identity formation’s best-validated marker: commitment. Findings from two samples of young adults living in the Netherlands (n = 320) and in the US (n = 246) both revealed that general distinctiveness marked adaptive identity formation and greater psychosocial well-being. Moreover, general distinctiveness had unique predictive value over commitment strength. Comparative distinctiveness from important others uniquely indicated lowered social well-being. Our findings illustrate that careful attention should be paid to the conceptualization of distinctiveness, because distinctiveness is an important but complex concept.     

A Review of “Suicidal Intent” Within the Existing Suicide Literature

The results of a systematic literature review that investigated suicide intent are presented. Of the 44 relevant articles identified, 17 investigated the relationships between various suicide risk factors and suicide intent and 25 publications investigated the relationships between suicide intent and various suicide outcomes. Despite recent advancements in the definition and nomological validity of suicide intent, a high degree of variability in the empirical measurement and analysis of suicide intent was found. Such variability limits future research related to measuring suicidal risk and outcomes, reporting suicide intent, or the meaningful comparison of diagnostic approaches or treatments across multiple studies.     

Prediction of Suicide Intent in Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Adolescent Inpatients: A Research Note

The relationship among depressive symptoms, anxiety, hopelessness, and suicidal intent was explored in a group of 77 adolescents who had been hospitalized after attempting suicide. Regression analyses indicated that hopelessness was the only significant predictor of suicide intent in Caucasian patients, and depressed mood was the only significant predictor in the Aboriginal group. Clinicians should be aware that measures of hopelessness may be of limited value in assessing suicidal risk in Aboriginal adolescents.     

Toward an integrative model of suicide attempt: a cognitive psychological approach.

Applying a cognitive approach, the purpose of the present study was to expand previous research on stress-vulnerability models of depression and problem-solving deficits, as it relates to suicide attempt. Structural equation modelling, involving latent variables, was used to evaluate (a) whether low self-esteem, a low sense of self-efficacy, loneliness, and divorce constituted vulnerability factors for the development of depression; (b) whether hopelessness and suicidal ideation mediated the relationship between depression and suicide attempt; and (c) whether problem-solving deficits mediated the relationship between the vulnerability factors and suicide attempt, separate from depression/hopelessness. A total of 123 individuals, aged 18-75 years, participated in the study (72 suicide attempters and 51 psychiatric outpatients with no history of suicidal behavior). The results indicated a two path model of suicide attempt. The first path began with low self-esteem, loneliness, and separation or divorce, which advanced to depression, and was further mediated by hopelessness and suicidal ideation which led to suicide attempt. The second path developed from low self-esteem and a low sense of self-efficacy and advanced to suicide attempt, mediated by a negative appraisal of one's own problem-solving capacity, and poor interpersonal problem-solving skills. The importance of addressing both depression/hopelessness, and problem-solving deficits when working with suicide attempters is noted.     

Stressful segregation housing and psychosocial vulnerability in prison suicide ideators

Psychosocially vulnerable prisoners under stressful conditions of confinement are ill prepared to cope and at risk for developing suicide intention. The present study examined the relationships of depression, hopelessness, reasons for living, mental health problem history, suicide attempt lethality history, and stressful segregation housing with suicide ideation in 134 prisoners. Prisoners housed in segregation were found to have significantly higher levels of depression and suicide ideation than prisoners in general population. A hierarchical regression model of suicide ideation found significant interactions between mental health problem history, suicide attempt lethality history, and hopelessness with anticipated segregation stress, independent of depressed mood. Results of the study are discussed in terms of the stress-vulnerability model, various methodological limitations, and future research.     

Validation of the reasons for living inventory in general and delinquent adolescent samples

Two studies are reported that discuss the validation of an adult suicide prediction questionnaire for use with adolescents. The Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL; Linehan, Goodstein, Nielsen, & Chiles, 1983) was slightly modified and administered to two samples of adolescents: one from a general high school population and one from a population of juvenile delinquents receiving psychological treatment in a correctional facility. As with adults, adolescents who reported more reasons for staying alive were less apt to report past or recent suicidal thoughts or behaviors. Evidence of convergent validity emerged via correlations of RFL subscales with depression, hopelessness, and other suicide inventories. Evidence of discriminant validity emerged in that correlations with social desirability were not large. Evidence of construct validity emerged in that the RFL subscales related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors over and above depression and hopelessness. Differences between general and delinquent adolescents' reasons for living are discussed.Special gratitude is due to the Indiana Department of Corrections and the Penn-Harris-Madison Public School System for their cooperation and assistance in data collection for this project.     

Clinical assessment of suicide risk in depressive disorder

Efforts to identify clinical risk factors for complete suicide through the follow-up of depressed patients have yielded relatively few robust predictors. Those identified by at least three studies are (in order of decreasing frequency) suicidal plans/attempts, male sex, being single or living alone, inpatient status, and hopelessness. Because the best established of these predictors has only modest sensitivity and specificity, the need for other robust tools is clear. A rich body of research has identified two biological risk factors for suicide in depressive disorder: hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis hyperactivity and deficits in serotonin function. Moreover, there is now considerable evidence that the dexamethasone suppression test and measures of serum cholesterol concentrations, respectively, may provide a clinically useful reflection of these two mechanisms. Observations that these measures appear to be additive, both with each other and with other clinical risk factors, indicate that a substantial improvement in the clinician's ability to assess suicide risk is possible.     

Disentangling the Interrelations Between Hopelessness,Loneliness, and Suicidal Ideation

We attempted to disentangle the interrelations between hopelessness, loneliness, and suicidal ideation, by comparing two conceptually driven models of their relationships, prospectively among 234 undergraduates, using a series of multiple regression/correlation equations. Model 1 framed loneliness as a risk factor for future suicidally that operates via its influence on hopelessness (the mediational view). Model 2 viewed hopelessness as a source variable that is predictive of both loneliness and suicidally, and postulated no relation between loneliness and suicidality beyond hopelessness. Model 2 received support, whereas Model 1 did not. We discuss the implications of our findings for the nomological status of hopelessness and loneliness as correlates of suicidality, and for exploration of the structural interrelations of suicide-related variables in general.     

Perfectionism,Stress, Daily Hassles,Hopelessness, and Suicide Potential in Depressed Psychiatric Adolescents

The current study examined dimensions of perfectionism, stress, hopelessness, and suicidality in a sample of adolescent psychiatric patients diagnosed with depression. This study evaluated the unique contribution of perfectionism in predicting suicidality after considering other predictors (i.e., hopelessness, depression) and it also examined the diathesis-stress model of perfectionism and suicide. A sample of 55 adolescents (41 females, mean age = 15.53, 25.5 % ethnic/racial minorities) who were psychiatric patients completed measures including the Child-Adolescent Perfectionism Scale, subjective and objective indices of life stress, daily hassles, depression, hopelessness, suicide ideation, prior attempts and suicide potential. In addition, other informants (i.e., adolescents’ parents) completed a diagnostic interview and an interview assessing major stressful experiences. Socially prescribed perfectionism (i.e., the perception that others require perfection of oneself) predicted concurrent levels of suicide potential and this association with suicide potential held even after controlling for the variances accounted for by depression and hopelessness. Hierarchical regression analyses provided partial support for the diathesis-stress model, that is, socially prescribed perfectionism interacted with daily hassles to predict concurrent suicide potential even after controlling for depression, hopelessness, and prior suicide attempt. Together, these findings suggest that socially prescribed perfectionism acts as a vulnerability factor that is predictive of suicide potential or risk among clinically depressed adolescents.     

Goal Orientation in Organizational Research: A Conceptual and Empirical Foundation

Although some have argued that goal orientation could be beneficially integrated into organizational research, progress in this area has been impeded by several problematic conceptual issues and a lack of validated dispositional measures. This research was intended to address these issues and to provide a foundation for future organizational research in this area. We argue that goal orientation is a two-dimensional construct that has both dispostional and situational components. In each of four independent studies, LISREL VIII confirmatory factor analyses (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993) illustrated that a two-factor model fit a set of goal orientation items better than a single-factor model. In addition, the latent goal orientations were found to be uncorrelated in each study. Moreover, correlational analyses indicated that demographic and substantive variables exhibited differential relationships with the latent learning goal and performance goal orientation constructs. Other analyses illustrated that the dispositional and situational aspects of goal orientation are distinguishable. Collectively, the results provided ample support for the convergent and discriminant validity of eight-item measures of each goal orientation and help to define the nomological network within which the two goal orientations reside. The importance of goal orientation as a multidimensional construct is discussed and several recommendations for further research are suggested.     

Personality traits and cognitive styles as risk factors for serious suicide attempts among young people.

The contribution of a series of measures of personality and/or cognitive style to serious suicide attempt risk in young people was examined in a case-control study. Individuals making suicide attempts had elevated odds of hopelessness, neuroticism, introversion, low self-esteem, impulsiveness, and external locus of control. When allowance was made for intercorrelations between these measures, hopelessness, neuroticism, and external locus of control remained significant risk factors for serious suicide attempt; self-esteem, extraversion, and impulsiveness were not significantly associated with suicide attempt risk. Nonsignificant findings were explained by the presence of substantial correlations between these measures and measures of hopelessness, neuroticism, and external locus of control.     

Psychopathology of adolescent suicide: hopelessness, coping beliefs, and depression

Two studies of adolescents examined the relation of several cognitive variables and depression to suicide-related behaviors. Study 1 compared hopelessness and depression in 281 high school students. Unlike research with adults, depression was significantly related to suicidal behaviors, even after hopelessness was statistically controlled. When depression was controlled, hopelessness was unrelated to suicidal behaviors for boys and only modestly related for girls. Study 2 examined depression, hopelessness, survival-coping beliefs, fear of social disapproval, and social desirability in relation to suicidal behaviors in 53 male juvenile delinquents. Again, hopelessness did not account for a significant proportion of the variance in suicide. Depression was uniquely related to past suicide attempts. Survival-coping beliefs were associated with self-predicted future suicide and other suicidal behaviors. Survival-coping beliefs are discussed as a cognitive buffer to suicidal ideation in adolescence.     

Evaluation of an evolutionary model of self-preservation and self-destruction.

According to deCatanzaro's mathematical model of self-preservation and self-destruction, staying alive actually may reduce inclusive fitness for an individual who is low in reproductive potential and, at the same time, poses such a burden to close kin that it costs them opportunities for reproduction. Predictions generated from this model were tested using 175 university students as subjects and variables constructed from a 164-item questionnaire. The criterion variables were separate measures of depression, hopelessness, and suicide ideation and behavior. The predictor variables derived from the model were separate measures of reproductive potential of the individual, the individual's perceived benefit or cost to kin, and reproductive potential of the individual's kin. As predicted, there were negative and significant bivariate correlations between each of the model-generated predictor variables and one or more of the criterion variables. Multiple regression analyses showed that benefit to kin was the best predictor of both depression and hopelessness. Discriminant analysis showed that reproductive potential of kin significantly differentiated suicide attempters from nonattempters. Overall, our results support and extend deCatanzaro's model and empirical findings.     

Mental pain and its relationship to suicidality and life meaning

Shneidman (1996) proposed that intense mental pain is related to suicide. Relatedly, Frankl (1963) argued that the loss of life's meaning is related to intense mental pain. The first goal of this research was to test Shneidman's proposition by comparing the mental pain of suicidal and nonsuicidal individuals. Meaning in life and optimism are the polar opposites of suicidality and hopelessness, and the examination of these variables in relation to mental pain was undertaken to provide a test of Frankl's proposition. In two studies, a relationship between a newly developed measure of mental pain--the Orbach & Mikulincer Mental Pain Scale, 2002 (OMMP; see also Orbach, Mikulincer, Sirota & Gilboa-Schechtman, 2002)--and suicidal behavior and life meaning were examined. Results confirmed both propositions. Implications for the study of mental pain and suicide are discussed.