First Advisor

David Capuzzi

Date of Publication

1996

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership: Administration

Department

Educational Leadership and Policy

Language

English

Subjects

Teenagers -- Suicidal behavior -- Oregon, Preteens -- Suicidal behavior -- Oregon, Suicide -- Oregon -- Prevention

DOI

10.15760/etd.1223

Physical Description

3, ix, 195 leaves: ill. 28 cm.

Abstract

There has been an epidemic rate of increase in youth suicide since 1960. Professionals, teachers, counselors and parents want to identify youth at risk of suicide and intervene prior to an attempt or a suicide. The premise of this study is that youth who display similar risk factors as past attempters and completers may be at risk of attempting themselves and can be identified by these risk factors. This is a quantitative and descriptive study of youth suicide attempters and completers in the state of Oregon in 1989 and 1990 in an effort to further identify risk factors of youth suicide attempters and completers. The researcher petitioned the Oregon Center for Health Statistics and obtained databases of 1150 youth attempters and 40 suicide completers. The attempter database was compiled from a legislatively mandated informational form filled out in public and private hospital emergency rooms for anyone under 18 sustaining injuries due to a suicide attempt. The second database is compiled from death certificates for youth under 18, specifying suicide as the cause of death. Data, both in the number of cases, and in the depth of the material is sparse on suicide completers. The first question employed both databases to examine the demographic similarities and differences between youth suicide attempters and completers in Oregon in 1989 and 1990. The second and third research questions are answered using the attempter data base. The second question is an in depth examination of 18 social, psychological and behavioral factors taken from the attempter database, resulting in a description of the youth who have previously attempted in Oregon in 1989 and 1990. The third research question again studies the same 18 social psychological and behavioral factors of the attempter population, dividing it into subgroups of sex, race, and age. Through crosstabulation and the chi-square tests of statistical significance, each group was specifically described. A fourth research question called for a qualitative focus group of professional suicidologists who confirmed the findings by comparing them to their own practical experience.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to pdxscholar@pdx.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/4465

Download

Share

COinS