Self-compassion and suicidal behavior: Indirect effects of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness across increasingly vulnerable samples

ABSTRACT

Suicide is a significant public health concern. Risk factors include depression, anxiety, hopelessness, being college-aged, and chronic illness. Self-compassion may reduce risk. We examined the relation between self-compassion and suicide risk, and the mediating effects of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. Our cross-sectional study included four samples: community (N = 632, 51.7% female, M age = 35.91), collegiate (N = 338, 67.0% female, M age = 21.81), fibromyalgia (N = 508, 95.7% female, M age = 47.66) and cancer (N = 241, 64.3% female, M age = 61.28). Across all samples, self-compassion was related to less suicide risk (avg. r = .28), and all assessed psychopathology mediated this association. Future studies are needed to examine causal effects of study variables.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide
• self-Compassion
• depression
• anxiety
• hopelessness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.