Spirituality moderates hopelessness, depression, and suicidal behavior among Malaysian adolescents
Abstract
Suicide is an important public health problem for adolescents, and it is essential to increase our knowledge concerning the etiology of suicide among adolescent students. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the associations between hopelessness, depression, spirituality, and suicidal behavior, and to examine spirituality as a moderator between hopelessness, depression, and suicidal behavior among 1376 Malaysian adolescent students. The participants completed measures of depression, hopelessness, daily spiritual experience, and suicidal behavior. Structural equation modeling indicated that adolescent students high in hopelessness and depression, but also high in spirituality, had less suicidal behavior than others. These findings reinforce the importance of spirituality as a protective factor against hopelessness, depression, and suicidal behavior among Malaysian adolescent students.
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Among Malaysian adolescents high in hopelessness and depression, those who reported being more spiritual exhibited less suicidal behavior than those low in spirituality.
“Among a sample of more than 1,000 Malaysian adolescents, those high in hopelessness and depression who reported being more spiritual, exhibited less suicidal behavior than those low in spirituality (Talib and Abdollahi, 2017).”
From A hope intervention for adolescents: a randomized controlled trial delivered by paraprofessionals (2025) · cites this paper as Talib and Abdollahi, 2017
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A hope intervention for adolescents: a randomized controlled trial delivered by paraprofessionals
Scioli, A., MacPherson, N., Murphy, R., Gooding, T., Love, M., Lyons, K. D., & Adachi-Mejia, A. M. (2025) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1528504 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Talib, M. A., & Abdollahi, A.
- Affiliations
- Universiti Putra Malaysia (MY)
- Corresponding author
- Abdollahi, Abbas
- Venue
- Journal of Religion and Health
- Published
- 2015-10-01
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 784-795
- ISSN
- 0022-4197 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-6571
- OpenAlex
- W1845410055
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 2.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Journal of Religion and Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository (Universiti Putra Malaysia) (acceptedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Optimism, Hope, and Well-being
- Keywords
- spirituality, hopelessness, depression, suicidal behavior, adolescents, moderation, protective factors, suicide prevention, daily spiritual experiences, Malaysian adolescents
- MeSH terms
- Suicide Prevention, Adolescent, Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Malaysia, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Suicide, Spirituality, Hope
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