Predicting attitudes towards suicide by depressive symptoms, cognitive distortions, personality, and distress tolerance

The current research aimed to examine the relationship between people's attitudes towards suicide and their depressive symptoms, personality traits, cognitive distortions, and distress tolerance levels. The sample of the study composed of 385 participants (269 female, 115 male) that aged between 18-to-63 years (M = 28.32, SD = 7.57). In line with the purpose of the investigation, a demographic questionnaire, Eskin's Attitudes Towards Suicide Scale (E-ATSS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), 5-Item Ultra-Short-Form of the Cognitive Distortion Questionnaire, Ten-Item-Personality Inventory (TIPI), Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scale were utilized. Correlation, one-way analysis-of-variance (ANOVA), and t-test were performed between E-ATSS factors and demographic and clinical information obtained from participants. Although ANOVA results revealed that marital status did not show any differentiation in terms of attitudes towards suicide, gender, education time, and having a psychiatric or psychological diagnosis history in oneself or in the family were found to have several significant relations and differences with varying effect sizes. A correlation analysis was also calculated between E-ATSS factors and PHQ-9, 5-Item Ultra-Short-Form of Cognitive Distortion Questionnaire, TIPI (extraversion subscale), DTS, and GAD-7. The findings pointed that depressive symptoms and cognitive distortions had positive correlations with acceptability of suicide factor of E-ATTS, whereas extraversion and distress tolerance level had negative correlations. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were computed to predict E-ATTS factors using PHQ-9, 5-Item Ultra-Short-Form of Cognitive Distortion Questionnaire, extraversion subscale of TIPI, and DTS while age, gender, education time, possessing a psychiatric/psychological diagnosis in family or oneself, and anxiety level (obtained via GAD-7) serving as control variables. The results of analyses were not significant only for the factor of open reporting and discussion of suicide and for the significantly predicted other five factors, explained variance ranged between 6%-to-27%. The findings were discussed in the light of the relevant literature.