Psychological Resilience and Suicide Attempt in Patients With Bipolar Disorder: An Exploratory Study

Patients with bipolar affective disorder (BPAD) have a suicide risk of up to 30 times higher than the general population. There is increasing interest in analyzing the effects of resilience in psychiatric diseases and its relationship to other factors such as suicide risk.

The main objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between psychological resilience and suicide attempts, along with other relevant clinical and sociodemographic variables in euthymic patients with BPAD.

Eighty six outpatients, more than 18 years old, mostly men (60.5%) with BPAD type 1, 2, mixed, and unspecified, in euthymic phase receiving antidepressant and/or euthimizing treatment, participated in the study. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were assessed by means of a questionnaire and psychological resilience by means of Connor-Davidson's 10-item Resilience Scale.

Patients with previous autolytic attempts scored significantly lower in resilience than those who had not attempted suicide (T = 3.30; p ≤ .001; 20.61 ± 6.58 vs. 26.52 ± 7.29). Patients diagnosed with BPAD scored significantly lower than other samples of university participants, workers, and the unemployed. The number of depressive episodes experienced was negatively and significantly associated with resilience scores (r = -.28; p < .01).

Patients diagnosed with BPAD who had made autolytic attempts had lower resilience scores than those who had not made them and lower scores than other general nonpsychiatric samples. The promotion of resilience in patients diagnosed with BPAD would facilitate a more adaptive and positive coping with the disease and their recovery process.