Thesis (Dr. P.H.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-10, Section: B, page: 6615. Adviser: Michael W. Ross. Includes bibliographical references.

The present study compared the suicidal behaviour and related measures of adolescents in high school in Germany (N=318) and South Africa (N=299). Participants completed a series of self-report measures of the SPS (Suicide Probability Scale), PSS-Fa (Perceived Social Support From Family Scale), PSS-Fr (Perceived Social Support From Friends Scale), SIB (Scale Of Interpersonal Behaviour) and a number of demographic questions. Analyses were conducted using content analysis, correlation coefficients and logistic regression to determine variables related to previous suicide attempts, stepwise multiple regression to account for variables predicting currents suicidal risk; and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine differences among the groups and among suicide attempters and non-attempters. 36 German (11.3%) and 48 South African (16.1%) adolescents reported that they had made previous suicide attempts. German adolescents reported 45 (14.2%) suicide attempts in the family and 82 (25.8%) suicide attempts by friends. South African adolescents reported 43 (14.4%) suicide attempts in the family and 92 (30.7%) suicide attempts by friends. The following variables were associated with previous suicide attempts in the German sample: attempted suicide by friends, a life-threatening event, previous psychiatric contact, the death of a friend, low perceived family support, female gender, attempted suicide in the family, suicide of a friend, and low perceived friend support. The following variables were associated with previous suicide attempts in the South African sample: low perceived family support, death of a friend, attempted suicide by friends, female gender, a life-threatening event, previous psychiatric contact, suicide of friends, and attempted suicide in the family. The following variables for the German sample were found to be significant predictors of current suicidal risk: low perceived family and friend support, previous suicide attempts, suicide attempts in the family, a life-threatening event, suicide attempts of friends, suicide of friends, female gender, and previous psychiatric contact. The following variables for the South African sample were found to be significant predictors of current suicidal risk: previous suicide attempts, low perceived family and friend support, death of a friend, a life-threatening event, previous psychiatric contact, suicide attempts in the family, suicide of friends, and suicide attempts of friends. These findings show that suicidal behaviour is frequent in both countries. Suicidal deaths of friends and family is more prevalent in Germany, whereas religion or belief in god does not protect against suicide attempts in both countries. Results indicate that perceived support from family is a strong protective factor against suicide attempts. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The present study compared the suicidal behaviour and related measures of adolescents in high school in Germany (N=318) and South Africa (N=299). Participants completed a series of self-report measures of the SPS (Suicide Probability Scale), PSS-Fa (Perceived Social Support From Family Scale), PSS-Fr (Perceived Social Support From Friends Scale), SIB (Scale Of Interpersonal Behaviour) and a number of demographic questions. Analyses were conducted using content analysis, correlation coefficients and logistic regression to determine variables related to previous suicide attempts, stepwise multiple regression to account for variables predicting currents suicidal risk; and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine differences among the groups and among suicide attempters and non-attempters. 36 German (11.3%) and 48 South African (16.1%) adolescents reported that they had made previous suicide attempts. German adolescents reported 45 (14.2%) suicide attempts in the family and 82 (25.8%) suicide attempts by friends. South African adolescents reported 43 (14.4%) suicide attempts in the family and 92 (30.7%) suicide attempts by friends. The following variables were associated with previous suicide attempts in the German sample: attempted suicide by friends, a life-threatening event, previous psychiatric contact, the death of a friend, low perceived family support, female gender, attempted suicide in the family, suicide of a friend, and low perceived friend support. The following variables were associated with previous suicide attempts in the South African sample: low perceived family support, death of a friend, attempted suicide by friends, female gender, a life-threatening event, previous psychiatric contact, suicide of friends, and attempted suicide in the family. The following variables for the German sample were found to be significant predictors of current suicidal risk: low perceived family and friend support, previous suicide attempts, suicide attempts in the family, a life-threatening event, suicide attempts of friends, suicide of friends, female gender, and previous psychiatric contact. The following variables for the South African sample were found to be significant predictors of current suicidal risk: previous suicide attempts, low perceived family and friend support, death of a friend, a life-threatening event, previous psychiatric contact, suicide attempts in the family, suicide of friends, and suicide attempts of friends. These findings show that suicidal behaviour is frequent in both countries. Suicidal deaths of friends and family is more prevalent in Germany, whereas religion or belief in god does not protect against suicide attempts in both countries. Results indicate that perceived support from family is a strong protective factor against suicide attempts. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

The aim of this diploma thesis is to describe the role of the Children´s socio-legal protection authority in dealing with risk behavior of children and youth and to analyze methods and instruments used by this authority to maximize the effectiveness of interventions, which should eliminate the risk behavior of children that negatively influences their personality development. The thesis also mentions the legislative regulation, which represents the base for socio-legal protection. In the theoretical part personality factors as well as impacts of family, school and social surroundings, which contribute to the creation and continuation of risk behavior, are analyzed. The thesis then focuses on the problem of truancy, which belongs to types of risk behavior. In the practical part the thesis presents, what curators for children and youth claim about their cooperation with schools in solving children's truancy during compulsory school attendance, which family and school factors they find risky and whether they consider current legal and methodical setting to be sufficient. At the end, the thesis deduces from results implications and recommendations for education staff in schools, i.e. class teachers, workers in education counselling and school directors, to prevent (or at least to minimize) truancy and emphasizes the possibility to cooperate with authorities of children´s socio-legal protection, which can be established already, when the first signals of absenteeism occur or in case of other educational problems, mainly poor interaction with children's parents.

MPH / Department of Public Health / Over the past years, suicide and suicidal ideation are being increasingly recognised as important issues for public health policy, especially, among police officers. Suicidal ideation is one of the tragic issues among police officers, causing serious emotional, spiritual, medical, social and psychological distress for the individual, their families and friends, however, not much is known about it in the Vhembe District. The purpose of the study was to explore the factors contributing to suicidal ideation among police officers in Vhembe District. The study was conducted in the Thohoyandou cluster, which is situated in Limpopo Province, South Africa. A study had a qualitative phenomenological research design. The data saturation were reached at the number of 12 police officers, the target population were selected by means of convenience sampling and data was collected through a semi-structured interview. The data collected was analysed using the thematic analytical approach and conclusion were made based on the findings of the study. The study findings show the following as the factors contributing to suicidal ideation among the police officers - domestic violence, financial problems, divorce, extramarital affairs, lack of social support, health problems, contradicting the law and organisational factors that include organisational structure and working with guns. The study recommended that the South African Police Services should continue to provide support and counselling to police officers after they have attended to traumatic cases and that police officers need to be more open about their problems and avoid attempting to deal with them by themselves. / NRF

In recent years, the emerging trends in cloud computing technologies have given rise to different computing services through the Internet. Organizations across the globe have seized this opportunity as a critical business driver for computing resource access and utilities that will indeed support significant business operations. Embracing SaaS as a crucial business factor enhances corporate business strategy through economies of scale, easy manageability, cost-effectiveness, non-geographical dependence, high reliability, flexible resources, and fast innovation. However, this has also come with various risks due to the limitation of traditional user identity and access control solutions’ inability to effectively identify and manage cloud users’ authorization process when interacting with the cloud. The limit can result in a legitimate user account's impersonation to carry out malicious activities after the user account is compromised to go undetected since traditional solutions seldom function based on user behavior trust level behind any account. Furthermore, the limitation is a significant vulnerability to the cloud environment. This vulnerability is known to be exploited by threats that can eventually lead to substantial unacceptable risks that can undermine security principles or requirements such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Significant consequences of this risk are categorized into financial damages, legal implications, reputational damages, and regulatory implications to the cloud environment. As a result, a solution that could contribute to the remediation of these potential risks incurred due to the limitation of user identity and access control management was proposed and designed as User Behavior Trust-Based Adaptive Security framework. The design aims to enhance how cloud users' identity and access control might be managed effectively based on a user behavior trust context and adaptation of corresponding access control measures through adaptive security. The design capability was manifested by integrating it into the standard ISO/2705:2018 Risk Management process. Although, there have been several good information security frameworks such as ISO/IEC 27005:2018 and other technical countermeasures such as SaaS Identity & Access Management (IDaaS) to deal with this risk on the public cloud services. However, they are based on static mitigation approaches, so there is a solid need to shift towards a more dynamic strategical approach. The presented design work, User Behavior Trust-Based Adaptive Security framework, intends to serve as a proposed guideline for risk mitigation that would enhance user identity and access control limitations across the cloud. The solution functions by a trust modeling process that evaluates cloud user activities to compute a user behavior comprehensive trust degree. The resulting data is further used as input feeds parameters into a policy decision point process. The policy decision point process adapts the input parameters to user behavior trust level and behavior risk rating to determine the appropriate access control decision. Ultimately, the adaptive security solution consults the policy decision points to dynamically enforce the corresponding controls measures based on the access control decision received as input feed. The report also conducts a risk assessment process to identify vulnerabilities, threats, and risks related to user behavior trust level and risk rating regarding SaaS resources. Then adapt the mitigation solution, User Behavior Trust-Based Adaptive Security framework, as a possible risk treatment within the risk management process ISO/2705:2018. This report uses a design methodology derived from User Behavior Trust Modelling scientific research work, Gartner Adaptive Security Architecture Model, and eXtensible Access Control Markup Language's policy decision point concept. The design evaluates user behavior trust level by the trust modeling, while the integrated policy decision point processes the trust level to make the access control decision which is later enforced by the adaptive security solution. The report further adapts the risk management procedure ISO/2705:2018 to identify risk from user behavior and trust level, then implements the design solution as a possible risk treatment. The research findings were documented as Results and Discussion, where the functional and operational aspects of the designed framework were provided. In addition, the effects of applying the framework as a possible risk treatment solution were observed through conducting an ISO/2705:2018 risk management procedure. The notable outcome of a reduction of identified risk levels was an improvement in user attitude or behavior, which eventually increased user behavior trust level and reduced associated behavior risk. At the same time, the discussion detailed the interpretation of the results, implications, and limitation of the research, why the framework could be considered a remediation solution beyond the state-of-the-art for cloud user identity and access management—precisely by integrating user behavior, trust, policy decision making with adaptive security into risk management process to reduce IDM-associated risk in the SaaS. Finally, this study has outlined the significance of adopting the designed framework as a possible mitigation solution to enhance the shortcomings of user identity and access control management in the cloud. It has demonstrated that SaaS identified risk can be reduced to an acceptable level when user behavior and activities are taken seriously. Insight into the current trust state and associated risk level of cloud users are vital for continuous risk monitoring and reduction. The solution is to be used as a recommended guideline that might significantly contribute to the research community and information security field of cloud security. Future research direction to consider the possibility of simulating and transforming this conceptual and abstract framework into a real-world working solution due to research work limitations. The framework was designed based on recognized and accepted scientific and technological principles and concepts, from user behavior trust modeling, eXtensible access control markup language, and adaptive security architecture. In addition, to extend this concept to a future research area that will focus exclusively on application-processes behavior.