| Description |
Self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) are pervasive among adolescents though there remains limited information regarding these behaviors in community samples. We know relatively little about contextual risk factors in community adolescents, specifically how well-supported adult theories, such as the interpersonal theory of suicide, translate to adolescent SITBs. Likewise, no studies have examined the disclosure of SITBs in detail, beyond a basic assessment of who was told. There has been no exploration of how nondisclosers may differ from disclosers. This study sought to examine the application to adolescents of two primary elements of the interpersonal theory of suicide (perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness) in predicting both overall risk for suicide as well as the frequency of self-injury when interacting with emotion dysregulation and disclosure status. Detailed disclosure data, including reasons for each disclosure, amount of information disclosed, and expectations for as well as immediate and long-term helpfulness, was examined based descriptively. One hundred fourteen adolescents aged 13-18 filled out a variety of questionnaires online. Results indicated that 33.3% (n = 38) of the sample engaged in some form of self-inflicted injury and of those participants, 60.5% (n = 23) had disclosed their self-injury to another person while 26.3% (n = 10) had not. Linear regression analyses indicated that higher emotion dysregulation, perceived burdensomeness, and thwarted belongingness all independently predicted higher frequency of self-inflicted injury. No significant interaction between variables was found. Thwarted belongingness interacted with disclosure status to predict suicide risk, with high levels of thwarted belongingness predicting higher suicide risk for adolescents who had not disclosed their self-injury, but not for those who had disclosed. Descriptive analyses of disclosure data indicated that adolescents often and provided significant information about their self-injury to peers, often disclosed for help-seeking purposes, and felt that responses to disclosures were moderately to very helpful. Based on these results, assessing for levels of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness in suicide risk assessments may be indicated. Future studies should attempt to extend these findings with larger samples and work to continue developing valid and reliable measures of disclosure. |
