Vulnerability and Protective Factors Associated With Suicidal Behaviour in Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Observational Network Analysis Study
4 affiliations
- 1Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, Faculty of Psychology, National University of Distance Education (UNED), 28040 Madrid, Spain
- 2Faculty of Psychology, Pontifical University of Salamanca (UPSA), 37002 Salamanca, Spain
- 3Department of Methodology of the Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Psychology, National University of Distance Education (UNED), 28040 Madrid, Spain
- 4Faculty of Psychology and Health Sciences, Distance University of Madrid (UDIMA), 28400 Collado Villalba, Spain
Abstract
Background:: Suicidal behaviour (SB) in adolescents constitutes a major public health priority. Contemporary theoretical models, such as the Integrated Motivational–Volitional Model, emphasise the role of defeat and entrapment in the emergence of suicidal ideation. However, most studies have examined vulnerability and protective factors in isolation. The present study uses psychometric network analysis to examine how defeat, entrapment, emotion regulation, bullying and cyberbullying victimisation (CBV), resilience, reasons for living (RFL), and SB are structurally related among adolescents.
Methods:: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted using non-probabilistic convenience sampling. The final sample comprised 1145 adolescents and young people aged 12–21 years (mean [M] = 15.46; standard deviation [SD] = 2.16), recruited from public, state-subsidised private, private, and other collaborating settings across Madrid, Salamanca, Granada, Cádiz, Seville, and Toledo. Participants completed measures of resilience, RFL, defeat, internal and external entrapment (EE), bullying and CBV, life satisfaction, cognitive emotion regulation, and SB. After prespecified data-quality screening, residual missing values were handled using multiple imputation. Descriptive, reliability, and correlational analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics, version 31, and the prespecified Extended Bayesian Information Criterion model selection (EBICglasso) network was estimated in R, version 4.3.1.
Results:: The network appears to be primarily organised around a motivational core comprising defeat and entrapment. The strongest regularised partial association was observed between internal entrapment (IE) and EE (weight [w] = 0.546), followed by the connections between defeat and both EE (w = 0.304) and IE (w = 0.290). SB was directly associated with defeat (w = 0.142), EE (w = 0.125), and RFL (w = -0.215). Defeat emerged as the node with the highest strength (strength = 1.508), followed by EE (strength = 1.196), resilience (strength = 0.995), and IE (strength = 0.968). Regarding bridge indices, defeat exhibited the highest bridge strength (1.508), followed by resilience (0.995), RFL (0.709), and EE (0.651).
Conclusions:: The findings suggest that adolescent SB is embedded in a network in which defeat and entrapment show substantial structural relevance, whereas RFL and resilience appear as protective resources. Resilience showed both high strength and bridge strength, indicating connectivity across several construct communities rather than causal or mediational effects. These results support the hypothesis-generating value of network analysis and highlight resilience, adaptive emotion regulation, and RFL as potential targets for preventive research and intervention.
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BibTeX
@article{cadizrodriguez2026vulnerability,
title = {{Vulnerability and Protective Factors Associated With Suicidal Behaviour in Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Observational Network Analysis Study}},
author = {Julián Cádiz-Rodríguez and Miguel Ángel Carrasco and Francisco Pablo Holgado-Tello and Martina Medolla},
journal = {Actas Españolas de Psiquiatría},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.62641/aep.2354},
url = {https://doi.org/10.62641/aep.2354},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Vulnerability and Protective Factors Associated With Suicidal Behaviour in Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Observational Network Analysis Study
AU - Julián Cádiz-Rodríguez
AU - Miguel Ángel Carrasco
AU - Francisco Pablo Holgado-Tello
AU - Martina Medolla
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
JO - Actas Españolas de Psiquiatría
DO - 10.62641/aep.2354
UR - https://doi.org/10.62641/aep.2354
AB - Background:: Suicidal behaviour (SB) in adolescents constitutes a major public health priority. Contemporary theoretical models, such as the Integrated Motivational–Volitional Model, emphasise the role of defeat and entrapment in the emergence of suicidal ideation. However, most studies have examined vulnerability and protective factors in isolation. The present study uses psychometric network analysis to examine how defeat, entrapment, emotion regulation, bullying and cyberbullying victimisation (CBV), resilience, reasons for living (RFL), and SB are structurally related among adolescents. Methods:: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted using non-probabilistic convenience sampling. The final sample comprised 1145 adolescents and young people aged 12–21 years (mean [M] = 15.46; standard deviation [SD] = 2.16), recruited from public, state-subsidised private, private, and other collaborating settings across Madrid, Salamanca, Granada, Cádiz, Seville, and Toledo. Participants completed measures of resilience, RFL, defeat, internal and external entrapment (EE), bullying and CBV, life satisfaction, cognitive emotion regulation, and SB. After prespecified data-quality screening, residual missing values were handled using multiple imputation. Descriptive, reliability, and correlational analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics, version 31, and the prespecified Extended Bayesian Information Criterion model selection (EBICglasso) network was estimated in R, version 4.3.1. Results:: The network appears to be primarily organised around a motivational core comprising defeat and entrapment. The strongest regularised partial association was observed between internal entrapment (IE) and EE (weight [w] = 0.546), followed by the connections between defeat and both EE (w = 0.304) and IE (w = 0.290). SB was directly associated with defeat (w = 0.142), EE (w = 0.125), and RFL (w = -0.215). Defeat emerged as the node with the highest strength (strength = 1.508), followed by EE (strength = 1.196), resilience (strength = 0.995), and IE (strength = 0.968). Regarding bridge indices, defeat exhibited the highest bridge strength (1.508), followed by resilience (0.995), RFL (0.709), and EE (0.651). Conclusions:: The findings suggest that adolescent SB is embedded in a network in which defeat and entrapment show substantial structural relevance, whereas RFL and resilience appear as protective resources. Resilience showed both high strength and bridge strength, indicating connectivity across several construct communities rather than causal or mediational effects. These results support the hypothesis-generating value of network analysis and highlight resilience, adaptive emotion regulation, and RFL as potential targets for preventive research and intervention.
SN - 1139-9287
SN - 1578-2735
ER -