Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, CA, USA.
Crisis. 2024 Jan;45(1):26-32. doi: 10.1027/0227-5910/a000909. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
Childhood maltreatment strongly predicts suicidality in young adulthood, which is increasingly common among Latina/o and Asian Americans. However, greater attention to modifiable explanatory factors is needed, particularly in ethnically minoritized populations. The current study evaluated whether the association between childhood maltreatment and suicidality may be accounted for by emotion regulation difficulties among a sample of young adults attending a large, minority-serving state university. Young adults ( = 853 participants; = 22.43 years; 76.2% female) completed validated measures of suicidality, childhood maltreatment, depression, and emotion regulation difficulties. A multiple indirect effect analysis was conducted in a structural equation modeling framework. Greater childhood maltreatment was associated with significantly greater emotion regulation difficulties across all six types and greater endorsement of overall suicidality. An indirect effect was found for limited access to regulation strategies only. Unexpectedly, lack of emotional awareness was associated with lower levels of ideation/attempts or threats of engaging in suicidal behavior. The study was cross-sectional, precluding conclusions regarding causality. The findings suggest that, for individuals who have experienced childhood maltreatment, it is particularly important to address deficits in access to emotion regulation strategies to reduce the risk of suicidal ideation and behavior.
儿童期虐待强烈预测年轻人的自杀倾向，而拉丁裔和亚裔美国人的自杀倾向越来越普遍。然而，需要更加关注可改变的解释因素，特别是在少数民族群体中。本研究评估了在一个参加大型少数民族服务州立大学的年轻人样本中，情绪调节困难是否可以解释儿童期虐待与自杀倾向之间的关联。年轻人（=853 名参与者；=22.43 岁；76.2%为女性）完成了自杀、儿童期虐待、抑郁和情绪调节困难的有效性测量。在结构方程建模框架中进行了多重间接效应分析。所有六种类型的儿童期虐待程度越高，情绪调节困难程度越大，整体自杀倾向越高。仅发现了对调节策略的有限获取的间接效应。出乎意料的是，情绪意识缺乏与自杀行为的意念/尝试或威胁水平较低有关。该研究是横断面的，不能得出关于因果关系的结论。研究结果表明，对于经历过儿童期虐待的个体，解决情绪调节策略获取不足的问题尤为重要，以降低自杀意念和行为的风险。
