Research finding · March 2024
The capacity to imagine future events may play a part in suicidal thoughts and behaviors
An aim of researchers studying youth who experience suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) is to understand cognitive (i.e., thinking) styles and capacities that may be at play when STBs are present. One such cognitive function that has been identified as a potentially relevant indicator of STBs is episodic future thinking, which is a function that allows us to imagine and plan for future events. It involves mentally simulating possible future scenarios, including thinking about what might happen, how we might feel, and what we might do in those scenarios. In the context of STBs, in addition to playing a key role in developing safety plans, prior research has shown that individuals experiencing STBs tend to demonstrate poorer future thinking.
As the first to study this cognitive function, Dr. Christine Cha and her team recruited 167 adolescents aged 10-17 who presented to an emergency room with recent STBs. They found that after a crisis, these adolescents could imagine some future events, but they didn't see them as very detailed or likely to happen. Older teens were better at imagining detailed future events compared to younger teens. However, the study did not find a link between how well they imagined the future and their likelihood of having suicidal thoughts and behaviors at follow-up. Instead, feeling hopeless was a stronger risk factor.
Citation: Pollak, O.H., Shin, K.E., Baroni, A. et al. An examination of episodic future thinking in the emergency department among youth experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-023-02219-3
This finding comes from an AFSP-funded study — see the grant below ↓
