Adolescents’ Bipolar Experiences and Suicide Risk: Well-being and Mental Health Difficulties as Mediators

Abstract

Bipolar disorder is usually accompanied by a high suicide risk. The main aim was to identify the risk and protective factors involved in suicide risk in adolescents with bipolar experiences. Of a total of 1506 adolescents, 467 (31%) were included in the group reporting bipolar experiences or symptoms, 214 males (45.8%) and 253 (54.2%) females. The mean age was 16.22 (SD = 1.36), with the age range between 14 and 19. Suicide risk, behavioral and emotional difficulties, prosocial capacities, well-being, and bipolar experiences were assessed through self-report. Mediation analyses, taking gender as a moderator and controlling age as a covariate, were applied to estimate suicide risk. The results indicated that the effect of bipolar experiences on suicide risk is mediated by behavioral and emotional difficulties rather than by prosocial behavior and subjective well-being. Specifically, emotional problems, problems with peers, behavior problems, and difficulties associated with hyperactivity were the most important variables. This relationship was not modulated by gender. However, the indirect effects of some mediators varied according to gender. These results support the development of suicide risk prevention strategies focused on reducing emotional difficulties, behavioral problems, and difficulties in relationships with others.

The Six-Item Version of the Internet Addiction Test: Its Development, Psychometric Properties, and Measurement Invariance among Women with Eating Disorders and Healthy School and University Students

“…Reliability of the IAT and the six-item IAT was evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha [ 80 ], corrected item-total correlations, and alpha-if-item-deleted. Item coverage and predictive validity of the six-item IAT were evaluated by correlating its score with the original 20-item IAT in all ED samples.…”

Study of Positive and Negative Affect and Neurocognitive Functioning in Adolescents

“…Mental health problems in the child and adolescent population have a strong impact on personal, social, health and economic levels (Fumero et al, 2021; Vaingankar et al, 2021). However, to date, there are still, limitations in understanding the association between positive and negative affectivity problems and neurocognitive performance during adolescence.…”

“…Thus, executive functions (EF) are related to positive outcomes such as social functioning (Blanco et al, 2015; Fusar-Poli, 2019; Gore et al, 2011) and academic skills (Distefano et al, 2018). On the other hand, specific neurocognitive changes during adolescence are related to an increase in vulnerability to certain mental health problems (Díez-Gómez et al, 2020; Fonseca-Pedrero, Pérez-Álvarez et al, 2021; Fumero et al, 2021; Ortuño-Sierra et al, 2019). For instance, a relationship has been found between EF and anxiety disorders (Godovich et al, 2020; Mullin et al, 2020; Ursache & Raver, 2014) and depression (Gotlib & Joormann, 2010; Thompson et al, 2020).…”

Psychosocial risk factors associated with suicide in youth and adolescents: A systematic review

“…This is consistent with the study of López et al (40) which reveals descriptive and factorial analyses that show psychopathological symptoms, highlighting among them, anxiety, depression, and borderline traits. Likewise, Cañon et al (79) Pumero et al (32) refer to those mental disorders constitute a relevant risk factor for suicidal behavior, alluding that the reported cases present antecedents of mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia. It is worth mentioning that schizophrenia, despite being one of the disorders that the literature has identified the most, was not so often referred to in the review.…”