Countdown to death: death anxiety fuels suicide risk through future time perspective and regulatory emotional self-efficacy

Death anxiety has been linked to suicide risk, but existing findings remain inconsistent and the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Given that death anxiety typically peaks among college students, this study explores future time perspective and emotional regulation self-efficacy as potential psychological mediators of this relationship. This study recruited 1,234 college students to conduct a questionnaire survey and used Hayes' PROCESS macro (Model 6) to examine the chain mediating effects of future time perspective and regulatory emotional self-efficacy on the relationship between death anxiety and suicide risk. The results showed that death anxiety was significantly positively correlated with suicide risk (r = .09, p = .001), but the direct effect was not significant. The total indirect effect of death anxiety on suicide risk through future time perspective and regulatory emotional self-efficacy was significant (β = .07, 95% CI: 0.100 to 0.196). The independent mediating effect of future time perspective was 0.11, accounting for 52.74% of the total indirect effect. The independent mediating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy was 0.03, accounting for 12.44% of the total indirect effect. The chain mediating effect was 0.01, accounting for 6.97% of the total indirect effect. These findings suggest that when college students experience death anxiety, enhancing their future time perspective and self-efficacy in emotion regulation may help reduce their suicide risk.