The present study aimed to investigate the role of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism in conjunction with stressful life experiences in suicidal ideation, potential, and prior attempts among depressed adolescents. Self-oriented perfectionism involves striving to meet one's own unrealistically high standards and evaluating one's performance stringently. Socially prescribed perfectionism involves the perception that significant others have very high expectations for oneself, which the perfectionist strives to meet. This study examined correlations between these perfectionism dimensions and suicidal ideation, potential or risk, and prior attempts in addition to investigating whether either perfectionism dimension accounted for additional variance in suicide outcomes beyond the established risk factors depression and hopelessness. Also examined was a moderational model whereby dimensions of perfectionism were hypothesized to interact with stress to predict suicide outcomes. A sample of 55 adolescents (41 females, 14 males) who met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition (DSM-IV; APA, 1994) criteria for Major Depression (65.5%), Dysthymia (16.4%), or Depressive Disorder NOS (18.2%) completed self-report measures of perfectionism, daily hassles, depression, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, suicide potential, and prior suicidal attempts. Additionally, adolescents and one of their parents completed a diagnostic interview and a stress interview measuring major stressful experiences. Results revealed that self-oriented perfectionism was not correlated with any aspect of suicide; however, socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with suicide potential. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that self-oriented perfectionism did not account for unique variance in suicide outcomes, whereas, socially prescribed perfectionism predicted additional variance in suicide potential once depression and hopelessness were controlled. Regarding the moderational model, both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism were found to interact with aspects of stress to predict suicidality. More specifically, self-oriented perfectionism interacted with daily hassles to predict suicide potential/risk. Socially prescribed perfectionism interacted with subjective and objective ratings of major stressful experiences and with daily hassles to predict suicide potential/risk. Neither perfectionism dimension interacted with stress to predict suicidal ideation or prior suicide attempts. Taken together, these findings suggest that among depressed adolescents, socially prescribed perfectionism is correlated with suicide risk and predicts unique variance in this suicide outcome beyond other established risk factors. Additionally, both selforiented and socially prescribed perfectionism act as vulnerability factors that are predictive of suicide potential when adolescents experience elevated levels of stress. As these relationships were apparent even after controlling for the contributions of depression and hopelessness to suicide, the results of this study highlight the importance of considering perfectionistic tendencies when evaluating suicide risk among youth. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Suicidality is an important problem among adolescents. This study compares Durkheim's and Tarde's perspectives on suicide. While the Durkheimian perspective alleges that integration, regulation, and anomie play the major role on adolescent suicidality, Tarde's theory considers imitation as the most important factor affecting suicidality. Durkheim suggests that individuals with higher integration and regulation are less likely to commit suicide. Individuals with less integration and regulation, on the other hand, are more likely to experience anomie and higher suicidality. Tarde claims that individuals with suicidal peers are more likely to commit suicide. In particular, the effects of school integration, family integration, peer integration, religious integration, neighborhood integration, family regulation, anomie, and suicide imitation on adolescent suicidality in Turkey are examined using binary logistics regression in the current attempt. The results indicate that school integration, family integration, and religious integration have significant negative effects on adolescents' suicidality whereas suicide imitation has a positive effect. The results of the study are expected to help to prevention programs purposed at reducing suicidality among adolescents.

Key words: Senior, suicide, odl age, needs, home for elderly, risk factors Abstract: This dissertation paper outlines the lives of senior citizens in residential establishments. The object of the paper is to set out how seniors living in care homes perceive the issues relating to suicide rates amongst the elderly. Characteristic suicidal statistics are outlined in the theoretical part of this dissertation. In subsequent chapters, the paper explores the topics of aging, major life events and the levels of risk factors associated with suicides in the elderly generation. The final aspects of the theory section of the paper outline the requirements and essential needs for the elderly within care homes. The empirical section initially focuses on the essential characteristics of care homes for the elderly. This formed the foundation of my qualitative research and includes an outline of the qualitative research method used. The final part of this paper concludes the research based on interviews of seniors, their own view on suicides within old age population together their own suicidal thoughts. Their own triggers of personal satisfaction and fulfillment are also included. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Objective: Gratitude, or thankfulness for positive aspects of life, is related to psychosocial well-being and decreased psychopathology, and may reduce suicide risk. We explored four potential hypotheses purported to explain the beneficial outcomes of gratitude (schematic, positive affect, broaden-and-build, and coping), hypothesizing that hopelessness (schematic), depression (positive affect), social support (broaden-and-build), and substance use (coping) would mediate the gratitude-suicide linkage. Participants: 913 undergraduate students from a mid-size, southeastern U.S. university. Methods: Respondents completed online self-report questionnaires including the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised, Gratitude Questionnaire, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Duke Social Support Index, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and Drug Abuse Screening Test. Results: Supporting theory and hypotheses, gratitude was related to less suicide risk via beneficial associations with hopelessness, depression, social support, and substance misuse. Conclusions: The linkage between gratitude and suicide risk appears to be predicated on the beneficial association of gratitude to negative mood and interpersonal functioning.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This dissertation examines three vulnerable groups’ health and healthcare access. The first research uses the 2002–2011 Health and Retirement Study data to estimate the effects of adult children’s employment on their caregiving to aging parents. State monthly unemployment rates are used as an instrument for employment. Results show that being employed affects neither male nor female adult children’s caregiving to aging parents significantly. The findings imply that the total amount of informal care provided by adult children might not be affected by changes in labor market participation trends of the two genders. The second research studies the labor impact of Colorado and Washington’s passage of recreational marijuana laws in December 2012. The difference-in-differences method is applied on the 2010–2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health state estimates and the 2008–2013 Survey of Income and Program Participation data to estimate legalization’s effects on employment. The results show that legalizing recreational marijuana increases marijuana use and reduces the number of weeks employed in a given month by 0.090 among those aged 21 to 25. The laws’ labor effects are not significant on those aged 26 and above. To reduce legalization’s negative effects on employment, states may consider raising the minimum legal age for recreational marijuana use. The third research examines disparities in suicidal behaviors between indigenous and non-indigenous adolescents. The study analyzes the 2001–2013 Youth Risk Behavior Survey data. Oaxaca decomposition is applied to detect sources of disparities in suicide consideration, planning, and attempts. The study finds that the disparities in suicidal behaviors can be explained by differences in suicidal factors’ prevalence and effect sizes between the two groups. Suicidal behavior disparities might be reduced by protecting male indigenous adolescents from sexual abuse and depression, reducing female indigenous adolescents’ substance use, as well as involving male indigenous adolescents in sports teams.

No description available.

Objective: Gratitude, or thankfulness for positive aspects of life, is related to psychosocial well-being and decreased psychopathology, and may reduce suicide risk. We explored four potential hypotheses purported to explain the beneficial outcomes of gratitude (schematic, positive affect, broaden-and-build, and coping), hypothesizing that hopelessness (schematic), depression (positive affect), social support (broaden-and-build), and substance use (coping) would mediate the gratitude-suicide linkage. Participants: 913 undergraduate students from a mid-size, southeastern U.S. university. Methods: Respondents completed online self-report questionnaires including the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire-Revised, Gratitude Questionnaire, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Duke Social Support Index, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and Drug Abuse Screening Test. Results: Supporting theory and hypotheses, gratitude was related to less suicide risk via beneficial associations with hopelessness, depression, social support, and substance misuse. Conclusions: The linkage between gratitude and suicide risk appears to be predicated on the beneficial association of gratitude to negative mood and interpersonal functioning.

Insomnia is a risk factor for suicidal behavior including attempts and suicide. We investigated whether insomnia symptom severity predicted suicidality and suicide in an at-risk sample. The sample included deceased psychiatric patients seen at Weber Human Services since 2008 (N=180) who completed the Outpatient Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ) prior to death. Insomnia symptom severity was assessed using item 41 from the OQ. Manner of death was determined by death records and autopsy reports. History of suicidal ideation and prior suicide attempts were determined through review of electronic medical records. Cases were grouped into 4 categories: no history of suicidality (n = 30), history of suicidal ideation (n = 36), suicide attempt history (n = 95), and death by suicide (n = 19). Insomnia symptom severity was compared across groups using linear regression. Logistic regression was used to determine whether OQ reported insomnia symptom severity predicted suicide, adjusting for psychiatric disorders. Compared to the non-suicidal group, the suicide attempt and the suicide groups reported significantly higher insomnia symptom severity, OR=3.52, p=0.001 and OR=6.53, p<0.001, respectively. Greater insomnia symptom severity reported on the OQ was a significant predictor of suicide attempt and suicide, OR=2.67, p=0.011 and OR=5.53, p=0.002, respectively, even after adjusting psychiatric diagnoses. Results suggest that insomnia symptoms are more strongly associated with suicidal behavior than suicidal ideation. The presence of insomnia symptoms in psychiatric patients may indicate risk for suicidal behavior and is a target for suicide prevention.

No description available.

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors are important public health concerns and suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents in the United States (CDC, 2019). The months following hospital discharge mark an increased period of risk for recurrence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. During this elevated risk period, the first month following discharge is a particularly high-risk period for suicide death (Meehan et al., 2006). Despite this known high-risk period, the processes that place an individual at increased risk during this time are not well understood. Emotion intensity and lability are known risk factors for suicidal ideation and are demographically salient risk factors among adolescents. Historic methodologies for assessing emotion intensity and lability rely on long-term retrospective self-report questionnaires and interviews which fail to capture the variability of these risk factors that are known to fluctuate on a daily to hourly basis. The present study implemented ecological momentary assessment (EMA; a methodology for repeatedly assessing variables in real-time), to study both positive and negative emotion intensity and lability among adolescents during the first month following discharge from psychiatric hospitalization. The current study sought to compare the power of traditional baseline assessments of emotions to that of EMA in the prediction of intensity and recurrence of suicidal ideation at 1- and 4-months post-hospitalization. Forty-five adolescents (12-18 years; M= 15.85; SD= 1.58) psychiatrically hospitalized due to a suicide related chief complaint were recruited from an inpatient unit in a larger treatment development study. Adolescents completed interviews and self-reports to assess demographic variables, baseline emotion characteristics, and history of suicidal thoughts and behavior. Following discharge, participants completed one month of daily EMA surveys, in which adolescents were asked to rate the extent to which they felt positive and negative emotions in the moment. Adolescents then completed a follow-up survey at 1-month and 4-months post-discharge to assess recurrence and intensity of suicidal ideation. We found that positive and negative emotions at baseline did not significantly predict suicidal ideation recurrence or intensity at either of the study follow-ups. High intensity of negative emotions as assessed via EMA was significantly associated with more intense suicidal ideation severity at both 1- and 4- months post-discharge, even after controlling for baseline suicidal ideation intensity and depressive symptoms. Assessing emotions on a daily basis provided stronger prediction models of suicidal ideation intensity in the months following hospital discharge compared to traditional methods of assessment. Limitations and future directions are discussed.