Risk Factors for Suicidal Behavior Among Alcoholics

Abstract

Four risk factors for parasuicide and suicide ideation in 197 male and female alcoholism inpatients were investigated: addiction severity, family addiction history, psychiatric symptomatology, and inadequate social support. Risk factors for suicide ideation were psychiatric symptom severity and social dysfunction; those for parasuicide were younger alcohol problem onset, more alcoholism symptoms, greater social dysfunction, and greater psychiatric symptom severity. Logistic regression was utilized to assess the independent effects of risk factors on both suicide ideation and parasuicide. The most efficient model for parasuicide prediction consisted of psychiatric severity, controlling for gender; the most efficient model for ideation was psychiatric severity.     

Social Support and College Student Contraceptive Use

The present study investigated the relative levels of four sources of perceived support for contraceptive use-mother, father, best same-sex friend, sexual partner-and motivation to comply with influence from those sources by young men and women who used or did not use effective contraception. Overall, best friend and coital partner were perceived as providing the most support, and the same-sex parent the least. However, among nonusers of effective contraception, best friend support exceeded partner support, which was seen as no greater than parental support. Only partner support was related to contraceptive use, and motivation to comply with partner was greater than for the other sources. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.     

Mental Health Implications of Same-Sex Marriage

SUMMARY

Marriage is a mental health protective factor and homosexuality is sometimes a risk factor. The combined effect of these factors on mental health was examined in this study. We conducted a secondary analysis of an international, cross-sectional survey completed in 2000 (N = 7,616). We examined risks of suicide ideations and attempts, behavioral problems, and treatment histories for male and female participants from Canada and the United States. We found significant relations between sexual orientation and suicidality in all four gender-country groups. We found significant associations between relationship status and suicidality for men but not women in both countries. Behavioral problems and treatment histories were equivocal. We discuss the mental health implications of these findings for same-sex marriage.     

The Impact of Experiential Exercises on Communication and Relational Skills in a Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper-Training Program for College Resident Advisors

Abstract

Objective: In an effort to identify students at risk for suicide, many colleges are implementing suicide prevention training for campus gatekeepers. This study evaluated the efficacy of a 3-hour, experiential-based gatekeeper training that included an emphasis on enhancing communication skills and relational connection in addition to the didactic foci of standard gatekeeper training. Participants: Sixty-five college student resident advisors (RAs) were trained with Campus Connect. Methods: The training was dismantled to examine the specific contribution of experiential exercises on training outcomes. Results: Compared to didactic training alone, following participation in experiential exercises RAs’ training outcome scores exhibited additional improvement on the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory–2 and a 14-item self-report measure of self-efficacy for specific suicide- and crisis-related knowledge and skills. Conclusions: In gatekeeper training, experiential exercises emphasizing awareness and empathic responding and practice of these skills contribute to an improvement in crisis response skills above and beyond that of didactic training alone.     

Military Invasion and Women's Political Representation

The bodies produced by the violent practice of suicide bombing are a source of horror and disgust. They are, in feminist psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva's concept, abject: that which defies borders and is expelled to create the self. As ‘abject bodies’, suicide bombers' bodies frustrate attempts at calculation and rational control of security risks, and, in their mutilated flesh, expose as unstable the idea of the body as a whole with clearly defined boundaries between inside and outside. Female suicide bombers, whose bodies are already considered ‘abject’, produce a politics of the body that exceeds narratives of victimhood, and whose very monstrosity symbolically threatens the foundations of the nation-state. Attempts at constructing subjects out of the mutilated bodily remains of victims and perpetrators of suicide bombings are key practices in the production of the state and gendered subjects. The practice of suicide bombing and efforts to recover and resignify bodies reveals how power molds and constitutes the border of the body and state simultaneously. The explosive body of the suicide bomber thus has destabilizing effects beyond the motivations of its perpetrators and exposes the political work necessary to maintain the illusion of secure, bounded bodies and states.     

Area Agencies on Aging and the Prevention of Elder Abuse:

This study reports findings from a 1989 survey of a national sample of directors of Area Agencies on Aging. The survey provided data on the structure of those agency activities which are intended to prevent elder abuse and on the perceptions of key decision makers with regard to the status of current efforts to prevent abuse. In addition, relationships between the population characteristics of planning and service areas (size, distribution) and program structures and perceived effectiveness were also examined.     

The Role of Positive and Negative Social Exchanges Between Adolescents,their Peers and Family as Predictors of Suicide Ideation

The role of positive and negative social exchanges between adolescents, their peers and family as predictors of suicide ideation was investigated in a national random sample of 1591 adolescents from the US National Comorbidity Survey. Four indexes measured socio-emotional exchanges by type (positive or negative) and by source (family or peers). Negative exchanges with family were associated with increased suicide ideation scores in younger (15–17) but not in older (18–19) adolescents. Positive support provided as significant buffering effect that was age-specific and independent of gender, income or mood disorders. Providers, especially social workers need to identify both positive and negative exchanges that adolescents experience with family and peers.     

Clinical Challenges Following An Adolescent’s Death By Suicide: Bereavement Issues Faced By Family,Friends, Schools,And Clinicians

Given the increasing prevalence of adolescent deaths by suicide, social workers are increasingly likely to be called upon to respond to traumatically bereaved families, peers, and possibly professional colleagues following an adolescents death by suicide. The authors discuss current trends in adolescent suicide. A stress diathesis model is applied to considering risk factors and their clinical implications following an adolescents death by suicide. Using a case scenario, the authors discuss clinical issues of complex bereavement following suicide, along with some suggestions for effective clinical follow-up with surviving families, peers, and professionals.     

大学生的自杀观念及其影响因素调查

该研究采用了抑郁自评量表(SDS)和影响因素问卷对442名大学生的自杀观念及其影响因素进行了考察。结果发现:大学生自杀观念的检出率高达21.27%,其中存在轻度自杀观念者13.35%、中度自杀观念者4.75%、严重自杀观念者3.17%;男大学生的自杀观念多于女大学生;二、四年级大学生的自杀观念多于一、三年级大学生;抑郁情绪是导致大学生自杀观念形成的决定因素,抑郁情绪越严重者,自杀观念越强烈;就业压力、学习状况、人际关系、恋爱、家境等因素对大学生自杀观念的形成也有显著影响。研究显示:大学生是自杀观念形成的高风险人群;大学生的自杀观念受多个因素的影响,其中决定因素是抑郁情绪。     

Population Policy in Early Victorian England

This paper argues that the generally-held belief that there was no population policy in Great Britain during its fertility transition is incorrect. There were, in fact, clear and implicit and explicit policies in place by the early 19th Century which aimed at reducing population growth. These were negative, involving elimination of family allowances (the famous Poor Laws), and also positive, through subsidised emigration and ``transportation' of felons to the colonies. Moreover, a changed ``ideation' on the part of the nation's political, intellectual and spiritual leaders, changed norms about marriage and child-bearing, raising sharply the perceived economic and psychic cost of children. Lacking acceptable means to control pregnancies, many working class women resorted to abortion, infanticide and child abandonment to reduce their family size. The policy's actual impact on overall fertility is uncertain but it did constitute a deliberate attempt by society to affect demographic behaviour and outcomes.