Resilience to suicidal ideation in psychosis: positive self-appraisals buffer the impact of hopelessness

Recent years have seen growing interest into concepts of resilience, but minimal research has explored resilience to suicide and none has investigated resilience to suicide amongst clinical groups. The current study aimed to examine whether a proposed resilience factor, positive self-appraisals of the ability to cope with emotions, difficult situations and the ability to gain social support, could buffer against the negative impact of hopelessness amongst individuals with psychosis-spectrum disorders when measured cross-sectionally. 

Seventy-seven participants with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders completed self-report measures of suicidal ideation, hopelessness and positive self-appraisals. Positive self-appraisals were found to moderate the association between hopelessness and suicidal ideation. For those reporting high levels of positive self-appraisals, increased levels of hopelessness were significantly less likely to lead to suicidality. 

These results provide cross-sectional evidence suggest that positive self-appraisals may buffer individuals with psychosis against the pernicious impact of a well known clinical risk factor, hopelessness. Accounting for positive self-appraisals may improve identification of individuals at high risk of suicidality, and may be an important area to target for suicide interventions.