Advanced Studies on Psychological Resilience to Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors: Current Trends and Future Directions

Dear Colleagues,

Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide. Over 720,000 people die by suicide yearly, which equates to one death by suicide every 40 seconds. Suicidal experiences, including suicidal thoughts, plans, urges, behaviours, and attempts, are even more frequent. Consequently, efforts are made to understand the precursors and risks associated with suicide-related experiences and deaths from different perspectives, such as epidemiology, public health, sociology, and psychology. It is essential to identify multiple risk factors for suicide; however, these do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the complex mechanisms underlying suicidal thoughts and behaviours. Hence, it is imperative not only to identify and examine the risk factors of suicide, but to also investigate the obverse side of suicide risk. That is, to understand what enables people to develop and maintain psychological resilience to various suicide-related experiences.

Psychological resilience is poorly understood conceptually. Despite an unclear conceptualisation, definitions of resilience have aspects in common. They broadly include a presence of predisposing factors (e.g., adverse life events or stress), a positive outcome (e.g., recovering/'bouncing back’ from the deleterious impact of the adverse event), and a range of protective attributes (e.g., personal beliefs, abilities, skills). Recently, resilience has been viewed as an amalgamation of modifiable factors or processes that can be nurtured and maintained by individuals. The aim of this Special Issue is to consolidate cutting edge research, theories, methodologies, and innovations in understanding the psychological resilience mechanisms underlying suicidal thoughts and behaviours across different populations. By integrating empirical evidence and perspectives from multiple disciplines, this Special Issue seeks holistic understanding and approaches to addressing the global healthcare problem of suicide from an alternate perspective to suicide risk, that is, psychological resilience.

We invite contributions from mental health researchers, academics, mental health professionals, clinicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, data scientists, epidemiologists, public health policymakers, and early-career researchers. Authors are encouraged to adopt diverse methodologies and interdisciplinary perspectives, and to consider various individual, cultural, demographic, ethical, and socioeconomic contexts in their work. We welcome original research papers and review articles focusing on the following:

• Conceptual understanding;
• Psychological mechanisms;
• Considerations of individual-level interventions and system-level changes;
• Understanding and tailoring interventions across different populations.

This Special Issue aims to not only advance scientific understanding, but to inform policies and effective interventions that foster psychological resilience and ameliorate the impact of suicide-related experiences on individuals and broader society. Therein, we welcome submissions of high-quality, original articles and systematic literature reviews, adopting quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods of research. Importantly, incorporating the views of people with lived experience in the research process is essential and strongly encouraged.

Dr. Kamelia Harris
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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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. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2200 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.

• suicide
• suicide death
• suicidal behaviours
• suicidal thoughts
• suicidal ideation
• self-harm
• suicidality
• psychological resilience
• wellbeing
• mental health