Gratitude and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among Chinese Adolescents: Direct, mediated, and moderated effects

Abstract

In a sample of 1252 Chinese adolescents (mean age = 15.00 years), this study examined the direct relations between gratitude and adolescents’ suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. This study also examined indirect relations between gratitude and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts via two self‐system beliefs—coping efficacy and self‐esteem. Finally, this study examined the extent to which stressful life events moderated the direct and indirect relations between gratitude and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. The odds of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts were lower among adolescents who scored higher on gratitude, after controlling for demographic variables. Self‐esteem mediated the relations between gratitude and suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, while the mediating role of coping efficacy was not significant. Moreover, stressful life events moderated the mediated path through self‐esteem. This indirect effect was stronger for adolescents low on stressful life events than that for those high on stressful life events. This study discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Feasibility and utility of positive psychology exercises for suicidal inpatients

“…For example, exercises on gratitude-the gratitude letter and counting blessings-had high utility scores and were associated with substantial improvements in optimism. This finding is consistent with prior work that has linked gratitude to lower levels of depression, hopelessness and suicidal thoughts/attempts [13,[52][53][54][55][56], though is in some contrast to a study that found a gratitude letter to reduce depressive symptoms in mildly, but not more severely, depressed participants [57]. The exercise focusing on a personal strength was also associated with substantial improvements in this population and was perceived as easy to complete, consistent with prior work finding this exercise to be associated with prolonged improvement in depressive symptoms [19].…”

“…Optimism, gratitude and other positive states have been associated with reductions in hopelessness, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, often independent of depression [10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Positive emotions in suicidal patients have been linked to improved problem-solving [17], and a study of patients hospitalized for self-harm found that low positive future orientation more strongly predicted recurrent selfharm after discharge than did global hopelessness [18].…”

Prevalence of suicide attempts among Chinese adolescents: A meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies

“…Of these studies, 11 studies [16][17][18][19][20][23][24][25][26][27][28] were from PubMed and Embase, while the other 32 studies [21,22,58] published in Chinese were from Wanfang Data, Chongqing VIP and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Among these studies, we removed 63 duplicate studies.…”

Gratitude and Athletes’ Life Satisfaction: A Intra-individual Analysis on the Moderation of Ambivalence over Emotional Expression

“…Although McCullough et al (2001) argued that gratitude can operate at both interindividual and intra-individual levels, past studies on gratitude usually focus on trait gratitude (e.g., Andersson, Giacalone, & Jurkiewicz, 2007;Froh, Yurkewicz, et al, 2009;Li, Zhang, Li, Li, & Ye, 2012;McCullough et al, 2002;Wood, Maltby, Stewart, Linley, & Joseph, 2008;Yuksel 15 & Duran, 2012), and functions of state gratitude have only been discussed in a few studies (e.g., Algoe, Gable, & Maisel, 2010;Kashdan, Uswatte, & Julian, 2006;McCullough, Tsang, & Emmons, 2004). Our study thus contributes to gratitude literature by providing more evidence to show the benefit of state gratitude.…”