The relationship between emotion dysregulation and suicide ideation and behaviour: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: : Suicide is a major public health issue. Psychological models and theories have suggested that difficulties regulating emotions may contribute to suicidal experiences. This systematic review aims to evaluate empirical research examining the relationship between emotion regulation and suicide ideation and behaviour in adults. Method: : Articles were required to include any measure of suicide ideation or attempt and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) to assess emotion regulation. Peer reviewed, quantitative empirical papers, written in the English language were considered. All participants had to be aged 18 years or over. EMBASE, Medline and Psychinfo were searched for relevant articles. A quality assessment measured risk of bias. PRISMA guidelines were followed. Results: : Twenty-one papers were identified as eligible. Significant positive associations were reported between emotion dysregulation and suicide ideation and attempts. However, emotion dysregulation was often not predictive of ideation or attempts when controlling for other psychological variables. Discussion: : Findings suggest that clinical intervention targeting emotion dysregulation alone would not be enough to reduce suicide ideation and behaviour. Longitudinal, experimental research is required to further analyse this relationship alongside potential covariates. The majority of studies were cross-sectional in design so causality cannot be inferred.

Keywords

• Emotion regulation
• Affect regulation
• Emotion dysregulation
• Suicide ideation
• Suicide attempts
• Suicidality