Mental pain and suicide risk: application of the Greek version of the Mental Pain and the Tolerance of Mental Pain scale.
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| Abstract |
According to Shneidman's theory, mental pain or "psychache", which refers to an endopsychic painful experience consisted of excessively felt negative feelings, is a key component to the understanding of suicidal behaviour, as to its psychological features. Shneidman himself supported that 'suicide is caused by psychache', more precisely suicide occurs when a person can no longer tolerate this pain. Findings of previous studies have shown that mental pain is an independent predictive factor for suicidal behaviour. In the present study we evaluated the psychometric properties of the Greek version of the Mental Pain Scale (MPS) and the Tolerance for Mental Pain Scale (TMPS) ina non clinical sample consisted of 112 participants (73 female and 39 male). Moreover, we explore the relationships between mental pain, depression, and suicide risk and for the first time the effect of the tolerance for mental pain on depression and suicide risk. We hypothesized that both the level of mental pain and the degree of tolerance for mental pain would predict suicide risk, independently of the level of depression. Both MPS and TMPS appear to have satisfactory to high levels of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity. Suicide risk was correlated to mental pain, tolerance for mental pain, and depression. Multiple regression analysis showed that mental pain and tolerance for mental pain have a significant contribution to suicide risk, independently of depression, confirming our hypothesis.Using an additional multivariate regression with the factors extracted from MPS and TMPS as independent variables, we found that especially 'loss of control' of mental pain and the ability to 'contain the pain' contribute uniquely to suicide risk. Our findings offer support to the hypothesis that mental pain is a clinical entity distinct from depression with a specific and important contribution to the suicide risk.Depression alone is not enough to cause suicide. The mental pain construct, although related to depression,could shed light on the comprehension of the human experience that leads to suicide. Relieving mental pain may constitute a distinct and important treatment goal, along with the remission of depression and despair, so that the person can maintain control and contain all the distressing events that comprise the painful experience. Both MPS and TMPS appear to be valid and reliable tools for the assessment of mental pain and its tolerance, respectively. They could also be employed in further investigation on the role of specific aspects of the mental pain experience in suicidal behaviours.
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| Authors | A Soumani, D Damigos, P Oulis, V Masdrakis, D Ploumpidis, V Mavreas, G Konstantakopoulos |
| Journal | Psychiatrike = Psychiatriki (Psychiatriki) 2011 Oct-Dec Vol. 22 Issue 4 Pg. 330-40 ISSN: 1105-2333 [Print] Greece |
| PMID | 22271846 (Publication Type: Journal Article) |
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