Suicide is a significant global health issue. A number of risk and protective factors have been associated with suicidal ideation, including resilience, social connectedness, adverse childhood experiences and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs).
In this study we aimed at measuring the impact of PLEs on suicidality and at exploring how the presence of PLEs moderates the effect of resilience, social connectedness and adverse childhood experiences on suicidal ideation in a sample of 500 undergraduate students using an on-line survey.
PLEs were strong predictors of suicidality in the whole sample (OR= 5.45, 95%CI [2.62, 11.30]).
The effect of resilience, social connectedness and adverse childhood experiences on suicidality was assessed separately for individuals with and without psychotic experience. In individuals without PLEs adverse childhood experiences, poor social connectedness and poor resilience were strongly associated with suicide (OR = 1.87 [1.25, 2.80], OR = 3.68 [2.18, 6.21] and OR = 4.06 [2.37, 6.94] respectively). These associations were weaker in subjects with PLEs (OR = 1.28 [0.76, 2.06], OR = 2.12 [1.13, 3.99] and OR = 2.50 [1.26, 4.94] respectively).
The effect of interpersonal and environmental risk factors for suicide was hampered in presence of PLEs. Psychological implications are discussed.