Exploring the Complexity of Internalizing Disorders in Suicidal Youth and Suicide Prevention
A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Psychology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2025 | Viewed by 1500
Special Issue Editors
Interests: psychometric; structural equation modeling; scale construction; item response theory; applied psychometrics; Bayesian methods; test construction and validation; risk and protective factors for mental health; applied behavior analysis
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue entitled "Exploring the Complexity of Internalizing Disorders in Suicidal Youth and Suicide Prevention.” Suicide remains a leading cause of death worldwide among adolescents and young adults. Suicide prevention requires a superior understanding of the complex factors that can identify suicidal youth. As an example, Bayesian network analysis can map the complex associations between the internalizing factors contributing to suicidal ideation and actions.
For this Special Issue, we welcome innovative psychometric and statistical modeling studies that utilize scores on valid measures to enhance our understanding of the relationships among internalizing disorders. Importantly, we encourage submissions across disciplines that examine the relationships between internalizing disorders, including suicidal thoughts, mood disorders, emotions, and at-risk behaviors in youth. We can better understand the risk and protective factors and inform upstream prevention models by elucidating the complex patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in clinical and non-clinical youth.
Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Network models of internalizing disorders in clinical/non-clinical samples.
- Factors that understand fluctuations in internalizing disorders or predict transitions from internalizing conditions (e.g., suicide-related thoughts) to externalizing disorders (e.g., suicidal attempts).
- Innovative modeling strategies for developing and validating scores on tools for screening/assessing internalizing disorders for youth and young adults.
We look forward to receiving your contributions employing contemporary modeling techniques to explore the complexity of internalizing disorders in suicidal youth and suicide prevention.
Prof. Dr. Augustine Osman
Dr. Jenny Mei Yiu Huen
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- internalizing disorders
- youth suicide
- suicide prevention
- modern statistical and psychometric methods
- assessment
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Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Psychometric Properties of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised in Malaysian Undergraduates: A Comparison between English and Malay Versions
Authors: Siau Ching Sin
Affiliation: Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
Abstract: The psychometric properties of the English and Malay versions of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R) need to be tested in Malaysia as they are increasingly being used. A total of 713 and 715 undergraduates answered the English and Malay SBQ-R, respectively. Cut-off scores for positive suicide risk were established based on comparisons with the YATT Suicide Attitude Scale. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the one-factor model for the Malay SBQ-R. Measurement invariance was achieved when compared across the English and Malay SBQ-R, indicating that both versions are similar and can be used to screen for suicide risk among undergraduates in Malaysia.
Title: Measuring psychological strains: A psychometric study to de-velop a shortened version of the Psychological Strain Scales
Authors: Ching Sin Siau; Jie Zhang; Won Sun Chen; Nur Zakiah Sa’at; Bob Lew; Xiaodong Ma; Kairi Kõlves
Affiliation: 1 Centre for Community Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, University Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2 Central University of Finance and Economics Department of Sociology, Beijing, China
3 State University of New York Buffalo State Department of Sociology, New York, USA
4 Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, Western Australia, Australia
5 Faculty of Medicine, Pingdingshan University, Pingdingshan, Henan, China
6 Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, School of Applied Psychology, Griffith Uni-versity, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Abstract: The Psychological Strain Scales (PSS) has been widely used in various populations to assess the risks of suicidality and mental disorders. The current study aims to shorten the original 40-item scale and test its psychometric properties. Data were derived from three samples in China: 1) undergraduate students (n=10,742), 2) office employees (n=1,044), and 3) hospital workers (n=949). A questionnaire was administered to the samples about the same time of the year 2017. Data were randomly divided into Sub-study 1 (70% of the sample) and Sub-study 2 (30% of the sample). In Sub-study 1, principal component analyses were run and five items with the highest factor loadings within each subscale were retained, resulting in a 20-item PSS scale. Cronbach’s α estimates were above 0.70. In Sub-study 2, confirmatory factor analyses for the three samples showed that RMSEA values were below 0.10, PNFI values were below 0.50 for all samples, and CFI, TLI and NFI values were above 0.90 for the student and office employee samples, but the hospital worker sample had a TLI of 0.88. The PSS-20 and its subscales were significantly associated with past-year suicidal ideation. The PSS-20 has acceptable psychometric properties among a diverse population in China.
