Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Suicidal Ideation, Emotional Self-regulation and Psychological Flexibility of Adolescents with Suicidal Ideation Referring to Social Emergency

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on suicidal ideation, emotional self-regulation, and psychological flexibility in adolescents with suicidal ideation who were referred to a social emergency center. The research method was a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design with a control group. The population of the study included all adolescents with suicidal ideation who visited the counseling center of the social emergency in Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh city in 2021. Thirty participants (15 in the control group and 15 in the experimental group) were selected from this population by purposive sampling and randomly assigned to two groups. The experimental group received eight 90-minute sessions of group ACT, while the control group was put on a waiting list. Data were collected using the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-2), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), and the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSSI). Data were analyzed using the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) test. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the posttest mean scores of the reappraisal component of emotion regulation and suicidal ideation. However, there was no significant difference in the flexibility and suppression components of emotion regulation. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that psychologists and psychotherapists working in social emergency centers or with adolescents use the results of this study to improve emotion regulation and reduce suicidal ideation in their adolescent clients