(PS9-C51) Suicide Risk, Emotion Regulation, and Use of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a valuable resource available to help individuals in crisis in the United States. However, many individuals in crisis do not call the Lifeline. Evaluation of factors associated with Lifeline use may impact outreach initiatives and interventions for suicidal individuals. The current study investigated the relation between severity of suicide risk and use of the Lifeline, with different emotion regulation skills as potential moderators. Participants included 1,140 undergraduate students (36% cisgender men, 62% cisgender women, 2% other genders) from a large university in the Southern United States. Participants were primarily Caucasian/White (75%), followed by Black/African-American (18%), and other races (7%). Participants were asked if they had ever called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline/988 (yes/no). Emotion regulation was measured using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale – Short Form (DERS-SF); the Strategies subscale (assessing the perceived inevitability of prolonged emotional distress and ineffectiveness of emotion regulation skills) and Goals subscale (assessing negative emotions’ interference with work or concentration) were examined in separate models. Higher DERS-SF scores indicate greater difficulties with emotion regulation. Suicide risk was measured using the Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised (SBQ-R; total score). The sample was split based on SBQ-R score: low suicide risk (total score of 6 or lower; 73% of participants) and significant suicide risk (total score of 7 or higher; 27% of participants). SBQ-R score was also included as a continuous independent variable in the models. Two percent of the low suicide risk group reported use of the Lifeline, while 13% of the significant suicide risk group reported use of the Lifeline. The moderated logistic regression models evaluated in the low suicide risk group did not fit, as neither SBQ-R score nor the emotion regulation subscales were associated with use of the Lifeline. However, in the significant suicide risk group, higher SBQ-R score was independently associated with use of the Lifeline. Neither emotion regulation subscale was an independent predictor of Lifeline use, and neither subscale moderated the relation between SBQ-R score and Lifeline use. In supplemental analyses (bivariate correlations) of the significant suicide risk group, DERS-SF Strategies was positively associated with SBQ-R score (r = .36, p < .001) and Lifeline use (r = .13, p = .025), but these analyses did not involve covariates or identification of independent predictors. These results suggest that differences in emotions’ life interference and perceived effectiveness of emotion regulation skills are not significant barriers to use of the Lifeline. In addition, findings revealed low use of the Lifeline among individuals with low suicide risk, and increasing likelihood of Lifeline use as suicide risk increases, suggesting that this resource is reaching the portion of suicidal individuals who need it the most.