Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80933 7150, USA.
Aging Ment Health. 2010 Nov;14(8):1015-23. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2010.501068.
Older adults have a disproportionally high rate of completed suicide as compared to the general population. Whereas a large literature has focused on risk factors related to elder suicide, limited research exists on relationships between coping strategies with protective factors against suicide and suicidal ideation in this population. Community-dwelling older adults (N = 108, mean age = 71.5 years, age range = 60-95 years) completed the Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced scale, Reasons for Living inventory, and Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale (GSIS). Problem- and emotion-focused coping were associated positively with reasons for living and negatively with suicide ideation. Dysfunctional coping was associated positively with suicide ideation, but results did not support the hypothesized negative relationship with reasons for living. Thus, problem- and emotion-focused coping appear to be adaptive, whereas dysfunctional coping appears to be somewhat less related to resilience to suicidal ideation among community-dwelling older adults. Implications of the study are that some coping strategies may serve as protective factors against suicide and that coping strategies should be evaluated as part of a thorough assessment of suicidal risk among older adults. The results also provide some evidence of convergent validity for the recently developed GSIS.
与一般人群相比，老年人的自杀完成率不成比例地高。尽管大量文献集中于与老年人自杀相关的风险因素，但在这一人群中，关于应对策略与保护因素之间的关系以及与自杀意念的关系的研究有限。本研究纳入了 108 名社区居住的老年人（平均年龄=71.5 岁，年龄范围 60-95 岁），他们完成了应对问题经验量表、生存理由清单和老年自杀意念量表（GSIS）。问题和情绪焦点应对与生存理由呈正相关，与自杀意念呈负相关。功能失调的应对与自杀意念呈正相关，但结果并不支持假设的与生存理由的负相关关系。因此，问题和情绪焦点应对似乎是适应性的，而功能失调的应对与社区居住的老年人对自杀意念的韧性的关系则不那么密切。本研究的意义在于，一些应对策略可能是预防自杀的保护因素，并且应该将应对策略作为对老年人自杀风险进行全面评估的一部分进行评估。研究结果还为最近开发的 GSIS 提供了一些趋同效度的证据。
