title: The role of perfectionism and autobiographical memory in a sample of parasuicide patients: an exploratory study.
abstract: The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between social perfectionism, overgeneral autobiographical memory recall, and psychological distress (hopelessness, depression/anxiety, and suicidal ideation) in a sample of parasuicide patients. Forty patients who had been admitted to a Scottish hospital following an episode of deliberate self-harm participated in the study. The participants completed the autobiographical memory task and a battery of self-report measures (multidimensional perfectionism, hopelessness, depression/anxiety, and suicidal ideation). The results showed that repetitive self-harmers were more overgeneral in their recall of positive autobiographical memories than were first-time self-harmers. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that socially prescribed perfectionism interacted with overgeneral recall of both positive and negative memories to predict suicidal ideation/depression. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research.
authors.affiliation: Suicidal Behaviour Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, UK. sar3@stir.ac.uk
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.forename: Rory C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.forename: Dallas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brodie
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001325:Autobiographies as Topic; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D010551:Personality; D012107:Research Design; D012307:Risk Factors; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology*