Suicidal intent, hopelessness and depression in a parasuicide population: The influence of social desirability and elapsed time

Abstract

This paper reports the first British study to assess the construct validity of Beck's Hopelessness Scale (HS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). On the basis of interviews with 50 economically active parasuicide patients, it was confirmed that hopelessness accounts for the relationship between depression and suicidal intent. Moreover, it was shown that social desirability neither confounds the relationship between hopelessness and suicidal intent, nor has any predictive power in explaining variation in suicidal intent. On the other hand, the interval ('elapsed time') between the commencement of the parasuicidal act and of the research interview was significantly and positively correlated with suicidal intent, and elapsed time was a significant predictor of the total score on Beck's Suicidal Intent Scale. Two explanations for this finding are proposed: the first is based on the possibility that elapsed time is an indirect or proxy measure of medical seriousness; the second derives from the likely impact of prolonged hospital stay on the patient's interpretation or understanding of his/her behaviour. Researchers are advised to take into account the moderating effect of elapsed time when designing studies which examine psychological processes in parasuicide.

Future‐directed thinking in first‐episode psychosis

“…The finding that the association of self-reported hopelessness with suicide risk did not reach significance was also unexpected, since this has been a consistent finding demonstrated in a variety of studies over the past 40 years (Beck et al, 1985;McMillan et al, 2007;Salter & Platt, 1990). The most likely explanation for this anomaly (as well as being influential in the other nonsignificant effects) is that it was necessary to reduce the measure of suicide risk to a binary variable (zero vs. non-zero), thereby reducing the power of the regression analysis to adequately model variation in suicide risk.…”

“…Self-reported hopelessness has been shown to predict suicidal ideation, DSH and suicide completion in numerous studies (Beck, Steer, Kovacs, & Garrison, 1985;McMillan, Gilbody, Beresford, & Neilly, 2007;Petrie, Chamberlain, & Clarke, 1988;Salter & Platt, 1990;Zhang & Li, 2013). Furthermore, self-reported hopelessness has been shown to mediate the relationship between depression and suicide: a stronger relationship is found between measures of hopelessness and suicide behaviour than between measures of depression and suicide behaviour Beck et al, 1985;Minkoff, Bergman, Beck, & Beck, 1973).…”

A comparison of specific positive future expectancies and global hopelessness as predictors of suicidal ideation in a prospective study of repeat self-harmers

“…Moreover, global hopelessness mediates the relationship between depression and suicidality (Salter & Platt, 1990), as well as predicting suicidal repetition (Petrie et al,1988) and completed suicide (Beck et al, 1989). However, up until the 1990s (MacLeod et al, 1993) it was not clear which components of pessimism for the future were most pernicious.…”

Cognitive Reactivity, Suicidal Ideation and Future Fluency: Preliminary Investigation of a Differential Activation Theory of Hopelessness/Suicidality

“…Previous research has found that hopelessness is a critical factor in increasing the risk of suicidal behavior (Salter & Platt, 1990;Wetzel, Margulies, Davis, & Karam, 1980). Hopelessness is closely associated with whether individuals feel they have any reasons for living (Linehan, Goodstein, Nielsen, & Chiles, 1983;Malone, Oquendo, Haas, Ellis, Li, & Mann, 2000;Mann et al, 1999) and predicts both repetition of suicide attempts (Mann et al, 1999;Petrie, Chamberlain, & Clarke, 1988;Scott, House, Yates, & Harrington, 1997;Sidley, Calam, Wells, Hughes, & Whitaker, 1999;Szanto, Reynolds, Conwell, Begley, & Houck, 1998) and completed suicides up to 10 years later (Beck & Steer, 1989;Beck, Brown, Berchick, Stewart, & Steer, 1990;Fawcett et al, 1990).…”