Desesperanza y afrontamiento centrado en la tarea median la relación entre sintomatologia depresiva y conducta suicida no letal en pacientes de salud mental

摘要

Introduction: Suicide is a relevant subject to public health. Its incidence has increased in Chile during the last decade. The current study aims to analyze psychological factors mediating theinfluence of depressive symptomatology in suicide ideation and attempt in mental health patients.Method: 96 mental health patients from public services and private practice, 67% female, with anaverage age of 30.7 years (SD = 12.2) answered Goldberg’s 12 item general health questionnaire(GHQ-12), Beck’s hopelessness scale (BHS) and coping inventory for stressful situations (CISS-21). Logistic regression and mediation analysis were used to establish suicide ideation andlifetime suicide attempt risk. Results: 22.9% of patients had suicide ideation during the last sixmonths and 41.7% tried to commit suicide at least once during their lives. Logistic regressionresults shows that, after controlling for depressive symptomatology, hopelessness influences suicideideation, and task-oriented coping influences lifetime suicide attempt. Hopelessness mediates theassociation between depressive symptoms and suicide ideation, and task-oriented coping mediates between depressive symptomatology and history of suicide attempt. Conclusions: Psychological factors such as hopelessness and task-oriented coping mediate the association between depressive symptomatology and non-lethal suicidal behavior, therefore they must be specifically consideredin the treatment of patients at suicide risk.