Peculiarities of intra-family communications among the student population as a psychoemotional predictor of pro- and antisuicidality

The problem of suicides among students remains topical. The peculiarities of family environment and styles of family emotional communications associated with verified high suicidal risk in students from higher educational institutions of Russia are studied insufficiently. The aim is to study the peculiarities of child-parent relations in the context of suicide risk. Methods. An online survey of 441 Russian university students was conducted. The severity of suicidal risk was assessed using the SBQ-R questionnaire (A. Osman). The main group of students with high suicide risk (MG, n=73) and the comparison group balanced by socio-demographic indicators (CG, n=87) were formed from the total sample. Students answered a number of questions developed by the authors that made it possible to reveal subjective assessments of their relationships with their parents. Family dysfunctions were assessed using the “Styles of Emotional Communication in the Family” technique (SEC, A.B. Kholmogorova, S.V. Volikova). The groups were compared using the Pearson χ2 and the Mann-Whitney U-criterion. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient was used to assess the relationship between the severity of suicidal risk and the peculiarities of family communications. Results. The share of students with any signs of suicidal risk (≥ 7 points according to Osman's methodology) in the total sample was 62%, the share of students with very high risk was 16,55%. According to the results of subjective assessments, among the students of the MG there was a multiple (2-3 times) excess of the share of those who assessed their relations with parents as conflictual, distrustful, lacking mutual understanding and support, excessively demanding, ignoring their own initiatives. Students from both groups reported quite often that they were afraid of not meeting their parents' expectations, but students from the MG indicated this almost twice as often (60,27% vs. 35,63%). In contrast, CG students were 2-3 times more likely to report that they were completely satisfied with their emotional connections with their parents, that the relationship between them was trusting, that their parents were involved in their lives, and that they could count on their support (80,46% in HS vs. 28,77% in CG). According to the SEC scale, in the families of students from the MG a high general level of family dysfunction is detected significantly more often. mainly in the form of parental criticism, avoidance of expressing emotions, maintenance of external well-being, provoking destructive perfectionism and negative emotional response. According to the data of correlation analysis, the level of suicidal risk is most strongly and significantly associated with the same indicators in the MG.