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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1301695
This article is part of the Research Topic Emotional Impulsivity and Emotion Regulation Deficits as Important Factors in Clinically Challenging Behaviors in Psychiatric Disorders View all articles

An Examination of the Mediating Role of Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies in the Complex Relationship Between Interpersonal Needs and Suicidal

Provisionally accepted
Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar 1*Michael Bakhshesh-Boroujeni Michael Bakhshesh-Boroujeni 2Sepideh Farajpour-Niri Sepideh Farajpour-Niri 3Issa Hekmati Issa Hekmati 4Mojtaba Habibi Asgarabad Mojtaba Habibi Asgarabad 5*Mehmet Eskin Mehmet Eskin 1
  • 1 Koç University, Istanbul, Istanbul, Türkiye
  • 2 University of Tabriz, Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, Iran
  • 3 Shiraz University, Shiraz, Fars, Iran
  • 4 University of Maragheh, Maragheh, Iran
  • 5 Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background. Studies have shown that psychological factors, notably interpersonal needs and emotion regulation, play a significant role in suicidal behavior. Interpersonal needs are significant contextual components that affect emotion regulation and contribute to a wide range of dysfunctional behaviors, such as suicidal behavior. It has been postulated that emotion regulation mediates the associations between proximal and distal risk factors of suicidal behavior.Method. The sample consisted of 340 community-dwelling individuals (62.5% women; SD = 0.48) with an age range of 18 through 55 (M = 30.23; SD = 8.54) who completed the interpersonal needs questionnaire, the suicide behaviors questionnaire-revised, and the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach was utilized to evaluate a mediation model.The findings indicate that interpersonal needs (i.e., perceived burdensomeness r = .55, p < .01 and thwarted belongingness r = .25, p < .01) and putatively maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies (i.e., self-blame; r = .38, p < .01, catastrophizing; r = .55, p < .01, rumination; r = .40, p < .01, and other blame; r = .44, p < .01) have strong associations with suicidal behavior, and have a mediating effect on the association between interpersonal needs and suicidal behavior.Our findings show that contextual-interpersonal needs, which underpin suicidal behavior, are significantly influenced by maladaptive emotional processes. Thus, therapeutic outcomes might be enhanced by focusing on the content of the associated cognitions and trying to reduce maladaptive regulatory processes like rumination and catastrophization.

    Keywords: Suicidal Behavior, Interpersonal needs, emotion, cognitive emotion regulation strategies, Structural Equation Modeling

    Received: 25 Sep 2023; Accepted: 06 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Abdollahpour Ranjbar, Bakhshesh-Boroujeni, Farajpour-Niri, Hekmati, Habibi Asgarabad and Eskin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar, Koç University, Istanbul, 34450, Istanbul, Türkiye
    Mojtaba Habibi Asgarabad, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

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