Psychological pain and suicidal ideation in undergraduates: The role of pain avoidance.

In the present study, the first with a Western sample, we tested the relationship between three dimensions of psychological pain and suicidal ideation in a sample of 331 Portuguese college students. When controlling for the effect of depressive symptoms, the avoidance dimension, but not the cognitive and affective dimensions of psychological pain, made a significant contribution in predicting the three indicators of suicidal ideation. According to these results, psychotherapeutic action may focus either on enabling clients to tolerate mental pain or on providing more effective and adaptive strategies to cope with this pain.

The multidimensionality of suicide risk factors and criteria in a nonclinical population: Replication across two countries and two languages.

Across two countries and two languages, this research examined the multidimensional associations between suicidality (e.g., past ideation/attempts, communication of intent) and empirically important psychological risk factors (e.g., mental pain, perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness). For samples of 228 Canadian and 331 Portuguese university undergraduates, four dimensions emerged in each sample with two of these, intrapersonal and interpersonal, demonstrating strong replicability across countries and languages. It was concluded that suicidality is a phenomenon that demonstrates some multidimensional similarities across cultures.