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Recent Advances in Stress Responses and Risk for Suicidal Behavior across the Lifespan

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A special issue of Journal of Clinical Medicine (ISSN 2077-0383). This special issue belongs to the section "Mental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 October 2022) | Viewed by 7520

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Nadine Melhem

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Guest Editor

Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
Interests: neurobiology; stress response; suicidal behavior; genetic epidemiology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

About 800,000 people die by suicide every year worldwide and the rates of suicide are on the rise in the United States. Suicidal behavior is often preceded by an acute stressor. A stress diathesis model has been proposed, positing a pre-existing vulnerability for suicidal behavior that is exacerbated by an acute stressor. Studies have been conducted on studying psychological and biological stress responses that are implicated in suicidal behavior. Dysregulations in the HPA axis, one of the biological systems regulating stress responses, is implicated in increased risk for suicidal behavior. The HPA axis is triggered by stressors of various sources (e.g., physical, emotional, immunological) and there is a tight signaling between the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems to maintain homeostasis. Chronic stress is associated with HPA axis dysregulation and increased inflammation. Post-mortem studies of people who died by suicide show alterations in the expression of genes in the HPA axis and inflammatory pathways and several meta-analyses and systematic reviews show evidence of increased inflammation in suicidal patients across psychiatric disorders; cerebrospinal fluid and peripheral blood of suicide attempters. In this Special Issue, we invite manuscripts that report state-of-the-art studies interrogating psychological and biological stress responses, peripheral and neural markers (e.g., fMRI, PET) of stress responses, and their relationships to risk for suicidal behavior.

Dr. Nadine Melhem
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Clinical Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Stress
Suicide
HPA axis
Inflammation
Neural markers

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 673 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Contribution of Risk and Resilience Factors to Suicidality among Mental Health-Help-Seeking Adolescent Outpatients: A Cross-Sectional Study

by Tal Shilton, Nimrod Hertz-Palmor, Noam Matalon, Shachar Shani, Idit Dekel, Doron Gothelf and Ran Barzilay

J. Clin. Med. 2023, 12(5), 1974; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jcm12051974 - 02 Mar 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1786

Abstract

Background: Peer victimization is an established risk factor for youth suicidal thoughts and behavior (suicidality), yet most peer-victimized youth are not suicidal. More data are needed pertaining to factors that confer resilience to youth suicidality. Aim: To identify resilience factors for youth suicidality in a sample of N = 104 (Mean age 13.5 years, 56% female) outpatient mental health help-seeking adolescents. Methods: Participants completed self-report questionnaires on their first outpatient visit, including the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions, a battery of risk (peer victimization and negative life events) and resilience (self-reliance, emotion regulation, close relationships and neighborhood) measures. Results: 36.5% of participants screened positive for suicidality. Peer victimization was positively associated with suicidality (odds ratio [OR] = 3.84, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.95–8.62, p < 0.001), while an overall multi-dimensional measure of resilience factors was inversely associated with suicidality (OR, 95% CI = 0.28, 0.11–0.59, p = 0.002). Nevertheless, high peer victimization was found to be associated with a greater chance of suicidality across all levels of resilience (marked by non-significant peer victimization by resilience interaction, p = 0.112). Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the protective association of resilience factors and suicidality in a psychiatric outpatient population. The findings may suggest that interventions that enhance resilience factors may mitigate suicidality risk. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Stress Responses and Risk for Suicidal Behavior across the Lifespan)

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12 pages, 687 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Association between Childhood Maltreatment and Suicidal Ideation: A Path Analysis Study

by Isabella Berardelli, Salvatore Sarubbi, Elena Rogante, Denise Erbuto, Carlotta Giuliani, Dorian A. Lamis, Marco Innamorati and Maurizio Pompili

J. Clin. Med. 2022, 11(8), 2179; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jcm11082179 - 13 Apr 2022

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2966

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have suggested that childhood maltreatment increases suicidal ideation, and dissociative symptoms and hopelessness are involved in this relation. To better address this issue, we used a path analysis model to examine the role of different types of childhood maltreatment on suicidal ideation, investigating whether hopelessness and dissociative symptoms mediated this relation. A sample of 215 adult psychiatric inpatients was enrolled between January 2019 and January 2020, at the psychiatric unit of Sant’Andrea Medical Center in Rome, Italy. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES-II), and Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) were used to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that the presence of sexual abuse directly affected suicidal ideation (β = 0.18, SE = 0.8, p < 0.05), while emotional abuse and neglect indirectly increased suicidal ideation via dissociation (β = 0.05, SE = 0.02, 95% C.I. 0.01/0.09) and hopelessness (β = 0.10, SE = 0.03, 95% C.I. = 0.04/0.16). Professionals working with children should be aware of the long-term consequences of childhood maltreatment, particularly suicide risk. Furthermore, professionals working with adults should inquire about past childhood maltreatment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Stress Responses and Risk for Suicidal Behavior across the Lifespan)

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Other

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18 pages, 472 KiB

Open AccessSystematic Review

The Effectiveness of Mobile Apps for Monitoring and Management of Suicide Crisis: A Systematic Review of the Literature

by Salvatore Sarubbi, Elena Rogante, Denise Erbuto, Mariarosaria Cifrodelli, Giuseppe Sarli, Lorenzo Polidori, David Lester, Isabella Berardelli and Maurizio Pompili

J. Clin. Med. 2022, 11(19), 5616; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/jcm11195616 - 23 Sep 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2127

Abstract

Suicide risk is a multifaceted phenomenon, and many risk factors are involved in its complexity. In the last few decades, mental health apps have spread, providing economic and affordable strategies to prevent suicide. Therefore, the aim of this review is to identify original studies on mobile apps that target suicidal crises. The review follows PRISMA guidelines, searching through four major electronic databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, PsycInfo and Web of Science) for relevant titles/abstracts published from January 2010 to May 2022. It includes original studies that explicitly analyze mobile apps for suicide prevention. A total of 32 studies met the inclusion criteria. Sixteen studies assessed the feasibility and acceptability of mobile apps, ten studies assessed the efficacy of mobile apps in preventing suicide, and six studies described randomized control trial protocols not yet implemented. Generally, the apps were judged by participants to be acceptable and helpful, and several improvements to enhance the functionality of apps were suggested. The efficacy of mobile apps, although limited and assessed with very heterogenous methods, was confirmed by most of the studies. Mobile apps could represent a helpful supplement to traditional prevention tactics, providing real-time monitoring of at-risk persons, personalized tools to cope with suicidal crises, and immediate access to specific support. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Stress Responses and Risk for Suicidal Behavior across the Lifespan)

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