Affect regulation and suicide attempts in adolescent inpatients.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the relationship between affect dysregulation and self-destructive behaviors in adolescent suicide attempters.


METHODS
Measures of affect dysregulation, number of risk-taking behaviors in past year, presence of self-mutilative behaviors in past year, and number of different types of self-mutilative behaviors in past year were individually administered to adolescents admitted to an inpatient unit who were either suicide ideators (n = 25) or suicide attempters (n = 35).


RESULTS
Suicide attempters reported significantly higher levels of affect dysregulation and a greater number of different types of self-mutilative behaviors in the past year than suicide ideators. In addition, the number of different types of self-mutilative behaviors in the past year had the strongest relationship to suicide attempts.


CONCLUSIONS
Suicidal behavior among adolescent psychiatric patients is related to poor affect regulation. A risk factor for suicidal behavior in adolescents is a broad range of self-mutilative acts in the year preceding the suicide attempt.
Zlotnick
C
C
Butler Hospital, Brown University Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Providence, RI 02906, USA.
Donaldson
D
D
Spirito
A
A
Pearlstein
T
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000296:Adolescent Psychiatry; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012652:Self Mutilation; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology*