NCJ Number
177153
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 28 Issue: 1 Dated: February 1999 Pages: 121-138
Date Published
1999
Length
18 pages
Annotation
Data from 60 male and 60 female students who were 16 years old and attended inner-city high schools were used to test the hypothesis that suicidal ideation is a common experience in a general population of black, Hispanic, and white urban high school students living in low-income neighborhoods.
Abstract
The research used a developmental framework to develop the hypothesis that once attitudes toward suicide were controlled, ideation would not vary significantly be ethnicity, gender, or psychosocial variables usually associated with ideation. The participants were randomly selected. Parents gave permission; the students were interviewed by a trained research assistant. The questionnaire consisted of standardized measures of suicide ideation, hopelessness, family coping, self-esteem, and drug abuse, as well as open-ended questions about the circumstances surrounding suicide ideation or attempts and about attitudes toward suicide. Seventy percent of the adolescents reported at least one incident of suicidal ideation; ideation did not vary by ethnicity. However, females; drug users; and those with greater tolerance toward suicide, higher family coping, and lower self-esteem were more likely than others to report ideation. A series of ideator profiles were calculated from the probability estimates and revealed that an increase in tolerance substantially raises the likelihood of ideation. Findings raise the question of whether it is time to reconceptualize the relationship between ideation and normal adolescent development and to define as normal behavior some experience with suicidal ideation. Tables and 56 references (Author abstract modified)