ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychological Therapy and Psychosomatics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1571300
Positive mental health predicts amelioration of suicidal ideation in patients undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
- 2Department of Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
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Background: Positive mental health has been shown to confer resilience against suicidal ideation and behaviour. Yet, studies on treatment seeking populations are rare.The aim of the present study was to investigate, whether PMH predicts the amelioration of suicidal ideation in patients undergoing psychotherapy.Method: Data from N = 959 outpatients (61.2% female; age: M(SD) = 36.58 (13.29), range: 18-82 years), who took part in a pretreatment and a posttreatment assessment after 12 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy, were included. Self-report measures of positive mental health, depression, and suicidal ideation/behavior were used.Results: Pretreatment PMH was shown to predict posttreatment suicidal ideation -after controlling for age, gender, pretreatment depression, suicidal ideation and lifetime suicide attempts.Discussion: Positive mental health might be understood as a protective factor in dealing with suicidal ideation. Findings underscore the need to focus on positive mental health in the riskassessment and treatment of suicidal patients.
Keywords: Positive mental health, Cognitive-behavioural therapy, Suicidal Ideation, suicide attempts, resilience
Received: 05 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Teismann, Friedrich and Margraf. 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: Tobias Teismann, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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