The personal experience of severe suicidal behaviour leads to negative attitudes towards self- and other's suicidal thoughts and behaviours: A study of temperaments, coping strategies, and attitudes towards suicide among medical students

The attitudes individuals have towards suicidal behaviour, be it their own or others', and their capacity for developing specific coping strategies are influenced by affective temperaments that play a significant role in emotional regulation. However, few studies have investigated these specific patterns with a view to stratify them according to the severity of suicidal behaviours in medical students. The Pearson χ2 test for the comparison of categorical variables, the t-test for independent samples of continuous variables and logistic regression analysis were used to compare the association among temperaments, coping strategies, and attitudes towards suicide in a sample of medical students who attend the School of Medicine, Genoa. Severe suicidal thoughts and behaviours relative to those who were not at risk for suicide were also revealed. The severe suicidal thought and behaviour group had significantly more anxious and cyclothymic temperaments together with a higher use of dis-adaptive, lower emotional focus coping strategies, and higher self-reproaching, criticizing, and judgemental attitudes towards suicidality compared to the no severe suicidal thought and behaviour group. The identified pattern suggests the need for clinicians to carefully consider the complex interplay of clinical features which characterize severely at risk for suicide young adults in order to develop effective and comprehensive prevention strategies.