Psychological Resilience to Suicide Ideation Among Older Adults

Abstract

We investigated associations between suicide ideation and a set of potential risk and resiliency factors in a heterogeneous sample of 107 older adults (mean age = 81.5 years, SD = 7.7 years; range, 67 to 98 years; 76% female) recruited in community, residential, and healthcare settings. Participants completed the Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale (GSIS; Heisel & Flett, 2006 Heisel, M.J. and Flett, G.L. 2006. The development and initial validation of the Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 14: 742–751. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and measures of depression, perceived physical health problems, domains of psychological well-being, perceived meaning in life, and indices of social network and of religious affiliation and observance. The main findings indicated that suicide ideation was associated positively with depression and with number of self-reported physical health problems and negatively with domains of psychological well-being including positive relations with others and self-acceptance, and with perceived meaning in life. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that the resiliency factors in general, and perceived meaning in life in particular, explained significant added variance in suicide ideation over and above measures of mental and physical health problems. These findings suggest potential value in attending to both suicide risk and resiliency when assessing late-life suicide ideation and when developing interventions for older adults at risk for suicide.

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