Mediational Effect of Positive and Negative Affect on the Relationship Between Emotional Symptoms and Suicidal Risk

Suicide has been linked to emotional disorders which, according to the transdiagnostic model, share common constructs such as positive and negative affect. This study examined the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between emotional symptoms and suicide risk.

The sample included 1,014 participants (33.82% male, 66.17% female) aged 18 to 75 years (M = 33.0, SD = 15.15). Four independent mediation analyses were conducted, using depressive, anxious, somatization, and obsessive symptomatology (measured with the LSB-50) as independent variables; positive and negative affect (measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, PANAS) as mediators; and suicide risk (measured with the Risk of Suicide Scale, RS) as the dependent variable. Sociodemographic variables were controlled.

Across all models, the relationship between emotional symptoms and suicide risk was positively mediated by negative affect and negatively mediated by positive affect.

Positive and negative affect function as transdiagnostic factors that partially mediate the relationship between emotional symptoms and suicide risk.