Affect regulation and suicide attempts in adolescent inpatients.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between affect dysregulation and self-destructive behaviors in adolescent suicide attempters. METHOD: 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. CONCLUSION: 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.