(PS9-39) The Role of Emotion Dysregulation and Life Stressors in Suicide Ideation Among College Students

Abstract Text: Research has identified traumatic life stressors (LS) and emotion dysregulation (ED) as risk factors for suicidal ideation (SI) and behavior (Tate et al., 2024). While the relationship between ED, LS, and SI has been established, the role of life stressors and emotion dysregulation in relation to suicidal ideation among college students has not been greatly explored. Additionally, trauma history has been recognized as a significant predictor of suicide risk among college students (Lucas et al., 2020). The proposed study aims to elucidate the relationship between LS, ED, and SI among college students using data from a large multi-site trial. Using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scales (DERS), the Life Stressor Checklist-Revised (LSC-R), and the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI), this study investigated how subjective impact of stressful life experiences and difficulty regulating emotions can impact suicidal ideation. Differences in ED based on race and ethnicity were also explored. We hypothesized that subjective response to trauma and emotion dysregulation will be positively correlated with severity of suicidal ideation. LS was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between ED and SI. Additionally, exploratory analyses assessed racial and ethnic differences in ED. Understanding this association may inform prevention efforts against suicidal behaviors among this population. Among college students (n=227), a moderated regression analysis revealed a significant main effect of LS (β=.14, SE=.38, p=.023) and ED (β= .39, SE=.39, p=0.01) on SI while the interaction between these two variables (β= .01, SE=.337, p=.866) was not significantly related to SI. These results indicate that for those with a history of trauma, emotion dysregulation may only account for part of the variance in suicidal ideation. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that a subdomain of ED called non-acceptance of emotional responses was significantly different across racial groups (F(4,218)=2.44, p=0.048). Post-hoc tests indicated individuals who self-identified as “other” were significantly lower in this subdomain when compared to other races. While a majority of the “other” group identified as Hispanic, further analysis indicated no differences between this group and the non-Hispanic group in the non-acceptance of emotional responses subdomain. Future research will probe this finding further. This finding is significant considering that non-acceptance of emotions has been linked to suicidal behavior (Tate et al., 2024). Future analyses of this data will also investigate the relationship between this subdomain and suicidal behaviors in this sample. This study suggests that while ED and LS independently impact SI, other factors may moderate the relationship between ED and SI. Additionally, nonacceptance of emotions was significantly different across racial groups. These findings may guide clinical interventions addressing emotional dysregulation in early adult minority racial groups and support prevention efforts for suicidal ideation and behaviors.