The Efficacy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on Psychological Capital and Emotion Regulation of Students with Suicidal Ideation

Introduction: Suicidal ideation, like self-reported suicidal ideation, ranges from a vague, influential desire to die to complete suicidal ideation. For this purpose, the present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on psychological capital and emotion regulation of students with suicidal ideation. Method: The present study was quasi-experimental with a pretest-posttest design and a control group. The statistical population of the study included students of Guilan University in 2021. Among them, 30 students were selected by the available sampling method and were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Suicide Thought (Beck et al., 1988), Psychological Capital (Luthans et al., 2007), and Emotion Regulation (Gross and John, 2003) questionnaires were used to collect information. Acceptance and commitment group therapy was performed on experimental groups during eight sessions of two hours per week. Finally, the obtained data were analyzed using a multivariate analysis of covariance. Results: According to findings, acceptance and commitment therapy significantly increases self- esteem, optimism, resilience, self-efficacy, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in students with suicidal ideation (P<0/005). Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, acceptance and commitment therapy can increase psychological health by improving psychological capital and emotion regulation in people with suicidal ideation. Therefore, this type of intervention is recommended to reduce suicidal thoughts.