Abstract
Objective: This study examines how clinicians' emotional responses to suicidal patients and their emotion regulation abilities are related to their treatment recommendations for these patients and to patients' concurrent suicidal ideation and at one-month follow-up. Methods: Adult psychiatric outpatients (N = 361) and the mental health professionals evaluating them for treatment (N = 43) completed self-report assessments following their first clinical meeting. Clinician emotion regulation traits, emotional responses to individual patients, and the recommended intensity of treatment were assessed. Patients were assessed for suicidal ideation immediately following the initial meeting and at a one-month follow-up. Moderation and mediation analyses were performed to examine the relationships between study variables. Results: Patient suicidal ideation at the initial clinical encounter was associated with increased negative emotions in clinicians with lower emotion regulation. Further, recommended treatment intensity was associated with clinicians' negative emotional responses but not with patient suicidal ideation among clinicians with lower emotion regulation. Conclusions: Treatment intensification is related to clinicians' emotion regulation abilities. Clinicians' attention to their emotional responses may facilitate improved treatment process and ultimately may improve suicidal outcomes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 329-340 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 The American Association of Suicidology.
Funding
This work was supported by the focus grant # RFA‐1‐015‐14 from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Dr. Barzilay's work is funded by the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| American Foundation for Suicide Prevention | |
| Ministry of science and technology, Israel |
Keywords
- TRQ-SF
- countertransference
- risk assessment
- suicidal ideation
- suicide
- suicide prevention
