Objectives: Metacognition is an essential process regarding decision-making and coping with stressful life events. This study aims to investigate the metacognitive beliefs and coping strategies of subthreshold depressive individuals with a history of suicide attempt. Methods: Thirty suicide attempters (mean age=25.50±7.66 years) with sub-threshold depressive symptoms and 30 healthy participants (mean age=28.27±7.13 years) were compared according to their Metacognition Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) and COPE scores. Results: The MANOVA results revealed a significant difference between the two groups for the subtests of negative beliefs about thoughts, need to control thoughts and lack of cognitive confidence in MCQ-30, and positive reinterpretation, seeking social support for instrumental reasons, active coping, planning, and problem-focused coping, behavioral disengagement, alcohol-drug disengagement and dysfunctional coping in COPE. Moderate correlations were found between the MCQ-30 and COPE subscales based on the Pearson correlation coefficients. Conclusions: This study reveals the effect of particular metacognitive beliefs and type of coping style on a suicide attempt. Despite the high prevalence of major depression in clinical practice, its subthreshold forms have been less studied. Besides, findings suggest that individuals with subthreshold depression have elevated risks of suicidal behavior and depression. This study is important for identifying risk factors and explaining how metacognitive beliefs and coping strategies are related to suicidal behavior among a nonclinical group. Dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs may make it difficult for the individual to seek alternative solutions to problems and produce adaptive coping strategies against stressful life events. Maladaptive metacognitions can also lead to overestimation of perceived stress and underestimation of cognitive resources and coping skills among suicide attempters with subthreshold depressive symptoms.
Key words: metacognition, metacognitive beliefs, coping, suicide
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