1. are breakups of romantic dating relationships linked to depression and suicidality?
Lucia F. O’Sullivan, PhD, David A. Clark, PhD, France Talbot, PhD, Mary Byers, Jennifer Stanford & Kendra Wasson

2. Acknowledgements
Financial support provided by an internal grant awarded to David Clark by the University of New Brunswick and an external grant award to Lucia O’Sullivan by the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation.
We also appreciate Rice Fuller for his help with the design and Mary Byers for her supervision of data collection.

3. Background
Young people contend with frequent and often stressful breakups (Del Palacio-Gonzálex, Clark & O’Sullivan, 2016; Tashiro & Frazier, 2003)
Most romantic relationships (74%) last less than 1 year
95% of US college students rejected a romantic partner and 93% report having been rejected

4. Background
Breakups believed to be a leading cause of depression and a significant contributor to suicide in young people (Cutler et al., 2001)
Suicide is second leading cause of death amongCanadian and US adolescents (Center for Suicide Prevention, 2011; CDC 2013)
Host of adverse mental health effects associated with romantic breakups

5. Yet most adolescents weather the trials of breakup reasonably well
Little is known about the risk factors linked to poor adjustment following a breakup

6. Research Questions
Are breakups linked to higher rates of depression and suicidality?
Which individual, relationship, or breakup characteristics render some young adults vulnerable to depression and suicidality following a breakup?
What makes a person resilient to a breakup?

7. Pilot Data: 118 men, 317 women; Mean age 19.7 years (18-25 years)
*Excluded 29 who were married/cohabiting (6.7%)

8. Extreme Groups on Distress
In this figure we divided the sample into high (n=35) and low (n=30) distress groups based on the approximately the 25percentile of the Breakup Distress Total Score. T-test analysis revealed highly significant group differences, with the high breakup group experiencing more depression, doubts about their ex-boyfriend/girlfriend’s love. Also the distress group reported a vastly greater difficulty with unwanted intrusive thoughts about the ex-boyfriend/girlfriends. Both unwanted intrusions and difficulty in control were a problem.
By the way, for the whole sample (n=121), there was a r = .84 correlation between intrusions & breakup distress. This is no doubt inflated because 25% of the Breakup Distress Scale deal with thinking about the ex. One other interesting finding, when we asked “are you currently in love with someone”, 2/3 of the low distress grp said “no”, whereas 2/3 of the high distress group said “yes” (a statistically significant difference). Clearly, “finding love” is not the answer to your breakup distress.
Conclusion: Doubts about the ex-partner’s love may make a breakup especially distressing. The other two ROCD subscales did not differ significantly between high and low breakup distress groups. Together with the zero-order correlations, these univariate analyses suggest that only one dimension of ROCD may be relevant to breakup distress, and that is doubt’s about your ex-partner’s love.
Is obsessing over whether your ex- ever really loved you a particularly toxic reaction to breakup?
z scores
BDI Total

9. Method: Sample
400 young adults; 223 (55% experienced a breakup in last 3 months)
Online using crowdsourcing site (Mturk®)
18-22 years; M = 21; 50% male
Race: White/Caucasian (73%), Black/African American (11%), Asian/Southeast Asian (7.2%)
Heterosexual (86%), Bisexual (7%), Other (6%)
Full-time students (46%); full-time employed (35%)

10. Measures Beck Depression Inventory (Beck et al., 1996)
Breakup Distress Scale (Field et al., 2009)
Depressive Symptom Inventory- Suicidality Subscale
Life Orientation Test-Revised (Optimism) (Scheier et al.,1994)
Grit Scale (Duckworth, 2007)
Rosenberg Self-Esteem (Rosenberg, 1965)

11. Relationship status Breakup status Single, not dating (26.9%)
Dating but not in a relationship (36.2%)
Committed dating (31.2%) or married/cohab (5.7%)
Breakup status
Experienced break up prior 3 months (n = 223)
Breakup and not dating (n = 75)
Breakup and casually dating (n = 121)
Breakup and in serious relationship (n = 34)
No break up (n = 176)

12. Results: Group Differences by Breakup Status

13. “Moved on” vs “Not Moved on” from Breakup

14. Regression on BDI Total for Breakup Group
Predictors
Zero-order
Correlations
Beta
t value
sr²
Optimism
-.45
-.11
-1.62
-.09
Grit
-.25
.01
.14
Self Esteem
-.62
-.55
-7.89***
-.42
N = 221; R² = .39; F(3, 218) = 45.81, p < .0001
***p < .0001

15. Regression on BDS Total for Breakup Group
Predictors
Zero-order
Correlations
Beta
t value
sr²
Optimism
-.29
-.12
-1.49
-.09
Grit
-.11
.05
.78
Self Esteem
-.36
-.30
-3.67***
-.23
N = 221; R² = .39; F(3, 218) = 11.56, p < .0001
***p < .0001

16. Worst breakups

17. Conclusions
Breakups are related to considerable distress, depression, and possibly heightened risk of suicidality
Not all breakups are traumatic
There may be predisposing factors that help an individual adjust to a breakup, such as esteem

18. Questions and Discussion