Sharp, Carla2020-12-182020-12-18August 2022020-08August 202https://hdl.handle.net/10657/7267Suicide is a matter of grave concern given its inherent threat to human life and the alarming increase in suicide rates throughout the past couple of decades. It is particularly important to investigate suicide in adolescents, as reports on its prevalence throughout the lifespan implicate this developmental period as a predominant point of onset. Past research has focused primarily on unitary constructs or psychopathology more broadly as a risk factor for suicide, with the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide providing one of the first empirically meaningful frameworks for understanding the onset, maintenance, and development of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The IPTS emphasizes the role of social factors in suicide risk and resilience, and subsequent studies have supported the theory, showing that the interpersonal context plays an important role in suicidal outcomes. An interpersonal approach to the study of suicide is particularly relevant to the phenomenology of borderline personality disorder, a disorder where suicidality is prevalent. However, specific research of interpersonal risk factors in the context of this disorder is relatively limited. Furthermore, the extent to which race (and any unique social factors related to racial minority groups) moderates these complex relations remains unclear. Against this background, then present study aimed to investigate the relationship between borderline personality features and the IPTS construct of thwarted belongingness in their relationships to suicidal ideation in an adolescent clinical sample (n = 336). Furthermore, minority status was investigated as a potential moderator in this relationship in order to assess for differential functioning of these variables among adolescents of different ethnoracial backgrounds. The specific aims of the present study were: (a) to examine thwarted belongingness as a mediator in the relation between borderline personality features and suicidal ideation, and (b) to examine minority status as a moderator in this mediational relation. Furthermore, acculturative stress was investigated as a factor that may be related to the moderating effect of minority status. Results indicate that thwarted belongingness partially mediated the relationship between borderline features and suicidal ideation, and that this relation was significantly moderated by minority status, such that the relation between thwarted belongingness and suicidal ideation was stronger in minority adolescents. However, the hypothesis that this difference may be attributable to acculturative stress was not supported. Findings of the current study emphasize the importance of interpersonal deficits as a risk factor for suicidal ideation in adolescents with features of borderline personality disorder and highlight the additional risk associated with minority status; emphasizing the importance of utilizing treatments that focus on interpersonal factors in the treatment of suicidal patients and remaining mindful of multicultural considerations in clinical practice.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).SuicideAdolescentsBelongingnessBorderline2020-12-18Thesisborn digital