Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 J Fam Viol DOI 10.1007/s10896-017-9943-2 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Childhood Abuse, Intrapersonal Strength, and Suicide Resilience in African American Females who Attempted Suicide Shweta Kapoor 1  · Heather Key Domingue 2  · Natalie N. Watson‑Singleton 3  · Funlola Are 4  · Corinn A. Elmore 5  · Courtney L. Crooks 2  · Amber Madden 4  · Sallie A. Mack 2  · Janelle S. Peifer 6  · Nadine J. Kaslow 2   © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017 protective, external protective, and emotional stability). The initial measurement model and the structural model both indicated excellent ft. Results indicated that childhood abuse was negatively associated with intrapersonal strengths and suicide resilience, intrapersonal strengths were posi- tively associated with suicide resilience, and intrapersonal strengths fully mediated the association between childhood abuse and suicide resilience. Thus, the results suggest a posi- tive and protective infuence of intrapersonal strengths on suicide resilience in the face of childhood abuse in suicidal African American women. The clinical implications and directions for future research that emerge from these fnd- ings are discussed. Keywords Resilience · Childhood abuse · Suicide · African-American · Women Childhood adversities are robust predictors of suicidal behavior (Borges et al. 2010). These experiences (mal- treatment/abuse, loss, family and household dysfunction, physical illness) results in a two to fve fold increase for the risk of attempted suicide (Dube et al. 2001). The greater the number of adversities endorsed, the greater the risk for suicidal behavior (Dube et al. 2001; Enns et al. 2006). Child- hood abuse is the adversity that presents the greatest risk for developing suicidal ideation and attempts (Enns et al. 2006). When other childhood adversities are controlled for, there remains a link between childhood abuse and later suicidal behavior (Molnar et al. 2001). Although prior research has examined the links between childhood abuse and both sui- cidal ideation and attempts, only recently (Allbaugh et al. 2017) has empirical attention has been given to the asso- ciation between childhood abuse and suicidal resilience, that is the capacity to cope with suicidal thoughts without Abstract There is a signifcant association between child- hood abuse and suicidal behavior in low-income African American women with a recent suicide attempt. Increas- ingly, empirical focus is shifting toward including suicide resilience, which mitigates against suicidal behavior. This cross-sectional study examines childhood abuse, intraper- sonal strengths, and suicide resilience in 121 African Ameri- can women, average age of 36.07 years (SD = 11.03) with recent exposure to intimate partner violence and a suicide attempt. To address the hypothesis that childhood abuse will be negatively related to suicide resilience and that this efect will be mediated by intrapersonal strengths that serve as protective factors, structural equation modeling exam- ined the relations among three latent variables: childhood abuse (measured via physical, sexual, and emotional abuse), intrapersonal strengths (assessed by self-efcacy and spir- itual well-being), and suicide resilience (operationalized via the three components of suicide resilience—internal * Nadine J. Kaslow nkaslow@emory.edu 1 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX, USA 2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory School of Medicine, Grady Hospital, 80 Jesse Hill Jr. Drive, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA 3 Department of Psychology, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA, USA 4 Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA 5 Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA 6 Department of Psychology, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, USA