NCJ Number
214992
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 35 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2006 Pages: 479-489
Date Published
June 2006
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examined whether the severity of depression reduced or intensified the link between a friend's suicide attempt and an adolescent's own attempt to commit suicide, as well as whether there were gender differences in this interrelationship.
Abstract
Similar to previous studies, adolescents who reported having friends who attempted or succeeded in suicide were more likely to report their own suicidal attempt; and depressed adolescents were more suicidal than psychologically healthy or nondepressed adolescents. Also, highly depressed adolescents were less likely than mildly depressed or nondepressed adolescents to attempt suicide when their friends attempted or committed suicide. This interactive effect was observed mainly among adolescent boys. Among adolescent girls, the interactive effect was in the same direction as among boys, but it did not reach statistical significance. It may be that highly depressed adolescent boys are so absorbed in their own miseries that they are less influenced by and reactive to external negative events. Data for this study were obtained from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Researchers selected a stratified sample of 80 high schools and 52 junior high and middle schools. The final samples for the analyses consisted of 5,589 youth who participated in the wave-1 interview and 4,285 who participated in both wave-1 and wave-2 interviews. In these interviews, adolescents were initially asked whether or not they had seriously thought about committing suicide during the past 12 months. Those who reported such thoughts were further asked about the number of times they had attempted suicide in the past 12 months. The independent variable, friends' suicide attempts, were determined at the wave-1 interview. 3 tables and 40 references