Narrative assessment of emotion regulation in adolescent suicide attempters.

摘要

The present study took a narrative approach toward examining emotion regulation in suicide attempters. Specifically, the goals were twofold: (a) to evaluate the validity and reliability of a narrative measure of emotion regulation; and, (b) to examine the efficacy of this measure in predicting future attempts, recurrent suicidal ideation, and psychological adjustment across a period of 24 months following a serious suicide attempt. Two dimensions of narrative analysis, namely, narrative coherence and efforts to derive meaning were used to assess emotion regulation. Temperament and coping style were hypothesized to be linked to coherence and deriving meaning to establish validity of coherence and deriving meaning as measures of emotion regulation. Results suggested that there was some evidence that coherence was related to coping style and temperament. However, neither temperament nor coping style was related to whether adolescents derived meaning from the suicide attempt. Certain aspects of deriving meaning and coherence were related to indices of adolescent psychopathology. Results suggested that engaging in constructing narratives was associated with increased anxiety in the short term, but reduced the likelihood of suicide re-attempts over time. Furthermore, adolescents who engaged in greater efforts to derive meaning had a more positive trajectory of suicidal ideation across the follow-up time points. Thus, confronting a distressing event and finding meaningful explanations for the attempt, may be important protective factors in preventing recurrent episodes of suicidality. Thus, a narrative approach to assessing emotion regulation in suicide attempters may offer a rich and fruitful way of gathering information relevant to designing future treatments and prevention programs for suicidal youth.