Modeling between primary maladaptive schemas and suicidal personality traits: mediation of the meaning of life in Gachsaran high school students

In the present study, the relationship between primary maladaptive schemas and personality traits with suicidal tendency was investigated through the mediation of the meaning of life.

The current research was descriptive and correlational (structural equation modeling). 420 secondary school students of Gachsaran city (215 girls and 205 boys) were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. In order to measure the studied variables, Yang et al.'s (1998) maladaptive schema questionnaires, Neo's personality traits (McCree and Costa, 1985), Steger et al.'s meaning of life (2006) and Mehrabi's suicide tendency (2009) were used. In this research, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used with AMOS version 26 software. Mediation relationships in the proposed model were tested using the bootstrap method.

The findings showed that the proposed model has a good fit with the data. Early maladaptive schemas had a negative and significant effect on the meaning of life (β=-0.11; P=0.017), but their effect on suicide tendency was not significant. Also, the findings showed that the personality traits of neuroticism (β=0.23, P<0.001), extroversion (β=0.19, P<0.002), agreeableness (β=0.17, P<0.003), and conscientiousness (β=0.48, P<0.001), had a significant predictive power of the meaning of life among students.

The results related to indirect relationships also showed that primary maladaptive schemas and characteristics of neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness through the meaning of life had significant indirect effects on suicidal tendencies, but the indirect path of trait empiricism to suicidal tendency through the meaning of life was not significant.