Journal of Counseling Research

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Aim: Suicide is a main cause of death worldwide, especially in teens and adolescents. The aim of this research was a structural test of the three-step theory of suicide in students.  Methods: Current research method was descriptive in the form of correlation that used structural equation model. Research community included all students of Mohaghegh Ardabili University, among whome 630 people were selected as sample through available sampling. Suicide Attempt questionnaire (Dhingra, et.al, 2018), Depressive Symptom-Suicidality Subscale (DSI-SS) Joiner et al. (2002), The Psychological Ache Scale based on Shneidman theory (1993), Hopelessness, Fraser, et.al (2014), Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire by Hill et.al. (2015), Self-Perceived Acquired Capability for Suicide by Rimkeviciene et.al. (2016), and Suicide Capacity Scale-3, by Klonsky & May (2015) were used.  Fndings: Findings showed that the composition of psychological ache and hopelessness are the main predictors of suicide attempt, and lack of interpersonal needs has a protective role. However, just acquired capability for suicide, in some extent can predict suicide attempt. Conclusion: The results showed that Psychological ache and hopelessness have an effect on suicide attempt both directly and indirectly through the idea of ​​suicide and the acquired capacity of suicide. Also, the relationship between acquired capacity and suicide attempt in the model was eliminated due to its low factor loading and better fit of the model. From these findings we can conclude that the three-step Theory of suicide model has a good fitness in Iranian community. Based on 3-step model, combination of hopelessness and psychological ache can lead to suicide ideation, and lack of interpersonal needs can act as a protective factor.