Childhood Maltreatment and College Students’ Current Suicidal Ideation: a Test of the Hopelessness Theory

This study evaluates the ability of the hopelessness theory of depression’s (Abramson et al, 1989) etiological chain to account for the relation of childhood maltreatment & adult suicidality in a sample of 297 undergraduates. Supporting the model, emotional, but not physical or sexual, maltreatment was uniquely related to average levels of suicidal ideation across a 2.5-year follow-up. Further, students’ cognitive styles & average levels of hopelessness partially mediated this relation. Although these results cannot speak to causality, they support the developmental model evaluated. (40 refs.)