E-Poster Presentations

Abstract: Introduction: Suicide is the outcome of a process starting with the experimentation of an unbearable pain or hopelessness, passing from suicidal ideation/planning, arriving to parasuicidal behaviors/effective attempts. A better understanding of the role of motivation in structuring the suicidal process could represent a better guide to the clinical intervention. Most instruments investigating the suicidal motivation are self-reports, possibly resulting in a lack of valid evaluations: there is a need for assessment involving clinician report interviews. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to validate the Motivational Interview for Suicidality (MIS) and to investigate the associations between the MIS areas and the different aspects of suicidal process. Methods: The sample is composed by 80 adolescents referred to the Mood Disorders Unit of the Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital assessed as at risk for suicidal behavior using the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale. The MIS is a semi-structured clinician-report interview. The interview is composed by 7 areas and 14 sub-areas, evaluated on Likert scale 0-4: illnessmotivated attempts area, chronic presence of internal pessimistic criticism area, sense of defeat and entrapment area, relational area, external motivated crisis area, extreme and unusual cases area, discontrol area. Results: Interpersonal influence, Escape' Fantasy, Impulsivity and Fearless Conducts significatively differ between ideators and attempters, while only the Fearless Conducts significatively differ between low and high potential lethality's attempts. Conclusions: Several motivations were found to be characteristic of the attempters and of the high potential lethality attempters and must therefore be considered in the assessment of suicidal risk.