Attachment style and experience of abuse in childhood in suicide attempters

Rates of suicide have been increased recently in the world. Insecure attachment style has been observed in depressed people with andwithout the history of suicide. Furthermore, some kind of abuse in childhood predict suicide attempt in adulthood. Our goal in this researchwas evaluating the relationship between attachment style and history of abuse in suicide attempters. This non-experimental and correlativestudy was done on 80 suicide attempters. Demographic information, suicide behavior, attachment style and history abuse in childhood wereinvestigated in the sample group. The results showed that just 38.8% had attempted suicide once. Most of the participants (53.8%) hadattempted suicide with drugs. 45% had experienced heavy maltreatment in childhood. There was a significant positive correlation betweennumber of suicides with three types of abuse including maltreatment, physical abuse and sexual abuse. 78.8% had avoidant attachmentstyle. Suicide attempters who had just the experience of mal-treating in childhood had avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles more thanothers. Thus, studying this topic is important especially in people who are at risk of suicide attempt, for planning precise and on timepsychological treatment for them and eventually prevent the doleful and acquired loss of humans in an inappropriate time.

Keywords:

attachment style , child abuse , suicide attempt