(PS13-16) Perceptions of a Positive Future Self as a Mediator Between Negative Life Stressors and Future Suicide Attempts

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between a history of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, negative life events, and future-self continuity. To advance clinical understanding of the process of recovery for individuals who have attempted suicide, it is relevant to consider the impact of life stressors on individuals who have a history of suicidal thoughts and behaviors compared to those who do not. Furthermore, it is important to consider the narrative identity of an individual who has attempted suicide. Future-self continuity is regarded as how consistent one perceives their present and future self to be (Sokol & Serper, 2019). This is important because discontinuity in a present and future self can be indicative of the likelihood of overestimating the significance of negative life events and viewing them from a detrimental standpoint, which, once built upon, may result in suicide as a solution to escape (Sokol & Serper, 2019). Therefore, future-self continuity was chosen as the focus to determine if an individual who can visualize their future self will be more likely to take actions to work towards that meaningful future and surpass negative life events. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a control group with no suicidal history (N = 150) and a group with a history of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (N = 150). Participants were recruited through CloudResearch to complete a Qualtrics survey via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and were evaluated on the following subscales: Future Self Continuity Questionnaire (FSCQ; Sokol & Serper, 2019), Life Events Assessment (LEA; Pagano et al., 2004), and the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R; Osman et al., 2001). Preliminary analyses indicated that there was a significant total effect between SBQ-R item 4 (i.e., “How likely is it that you will attempt suicide someday?”) and LEA (B = .04, p = .001), and path a (i.e., LEA to positive FSCQ) (B = .02, p = .02) and path b (i.e., FSCQ to SBQ-R item 4) (B = -.5, p < .001). Finally, when FSCQ entered the relationship between LEA and SBQ-R item 4, the direct effect (B = .01, p = .002) and indirect effect (B = -.01, p = .03) were significant. In other words, negative life events predict the likelihood of future suicide attempts and are mediated by positive future-self continuity.