ObjectiveWe examined the association between resilience and suicidality across the lifespan.
Method
Participants (n = 7485) from the Personality and Total Health (PATH) Through LifeProject, a population sample from Canberra and Queanbeyan, Australia, were stratified into three age cohorts (20-24, 40-44, 60-64 years of age). Binary Logistic regression explored the association between resilience and suicidality.
ResultsAcross age cohorts, low resilience was associated with an increased risk for suicidality.However, this effect was subsequently made redundant in models that fully adjusted for other risk factors for suicidality amongst young and old adults.
ConclusionsResilience is associated with suicidality across the lifespan, but only those in midlife continued to report increased likelihood of suicidality in fully-adjusted models.
KEYWORDS:Resilience; Suicidality; Lifespan; Age differences
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT2 Defining resilience as a unitary construct has proved problematic; frequently definitions reflect quite different theoretical approaches. As Ahern, Kiehl, Sole and Byers (2006) describe, resilience can be operationalised as 1) a set of temporally stable set of individual traits (e.g. mastery, self-esteem) that allows the individual to successfully cope with changes in the environment and within the individual themselves; 2) a process that reflects the affective, cognitive and behavioural adaptations to coping with a stressful event; or 3) the successful outcome of such stressful transactions. Of particular relevance for process and outcome definitions, Burns and Anstey (2010) highlight the role of both genetic (e.g. 5-HT 1A functionality) and environmental resources (e.g. social support networks) in moderating individuals' capacity to cope with stressors, whilst (Gillespie, Chaboyer & Wallis, 2009) emphasise that resilience appears to be shaped by age and life experiences. Regardless of definition, resilience is associated with an internal locus of control, positive self-image and optimism (Cederblad, 1996;Werner, 1992). In contrast, low resilience has been associated with an increased incidence of suicidal behaviours (Roy, Sarchiapone & Carli, 2006, 2007, likelihood of psychiatric symptoms and development of disorders (Roy et al., 2007) and poor health status (Connor & Davidson, 2003)."Suicidality" is an encompassing term constituting suicidal ideation (thinking about ending one's life), attempts (nonfatal self-injurious behaviour, some intent to die), plans (formulating a strategy of how to end one's life) and completed suicide (death by suicide) (Silverman, 2006). Currently, few studies have focused on resilience to suicidal (Heisel & Flett, 2008; Osman et al., 2004;Rutter, Freedenthal & Osman, 2008) examining the impact of resilience on suicidality. Previous work has focused on adolescent, young adult, university, geriatric and clinical populations (Heisel & Flett, 2008; Johnson, Gooding, Wood & Tarrier, 2010; Osman et al., 2004;Roy et al., 2007;Rutter et al., 2008). Consequently, wh...