Childhood Maltreatment and College Students' Current Suicidal Ideation: A Test of the Hopelessness Theory

Few studies have examined the relation between childhood maltreatment and adult suicidality within the context of a coherent theoretical model. The current study evaluates the ability of the hopelessness theory of depression's (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989) etiological chain to account...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Suicide & life-threatening behavior 2001-12, Vol.31 (4), p.405-415
Main Authors: Gibb, Brandon E., Alloy, Lauren B., Abramson, Lyn Y., Rose, Donna T., Whitehouse, Wayne G., Hogan, Michael E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Biological and medical sciences
Child abuse & neglect
Child Abuse - psychology
Cognition
Cognitive Style
College students
Depressive Disorder - psychology
Helplessness, Learned
Humans
Male
Medical sciences
Mental depression
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Regression Analysis
Sex Factors
Students - psychology
Suicide
Suicide - psychology
Suicides & suicide attempts
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Summary:Few studies have examined the relation between childhood maltreatment and adult suicidality within the context of a coherent theoretical model. The current study evaluates the ability of the hopelessness theory of depression's (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989) etiological chain to account for this relation in a sample of 297 undergraduates. Supporting the model, emotional, but not physical or sexual, maltreatment was uniquely related to average levels of suicidal ideation across a 2.5‐year follow‐up. Further, students' cognitive styles and average levels of hopelessness partially mediated this relation. Although these results cannot speak to causality, they support the developmental model evaluated.
ISSN:0363-0234
1943-278X
DOI:10.1521/suli.31.4.405.22042