Increase in suicide rates of African American males since the 1960s has
prompted a growing interest among researchers. Although research has increased
in this area, suicide remains an issue that is explored far less often among African
American males compared to other groups. Moreover, studies exploring risk
factors associated with suicide in this group have led to inconclusive results. The
current meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the results of existing
literature and to identify risk factors associated with suicide among African
American males under the age of 30. Of 25 research articles published between
1970 and 2007 that met inclusion criteria, 48 units of analysis were obtained
including 37,927 total subjects. The current analysis identified 57 risk factors that
were categorized into 16 constructs: substance use, religion, economic, location,
education, family, internalizing, externalizing, ethnic variables, stressor/ conflict,
support, medical/somatic, psychological disorder, perception, age, and gender.
Risk factors for suicidal behavior were coded and effect sizes between groups
were computed. Age yielded the largest magnitude of effect such that suicidal
groups of African American males were more likely to be younger than groups of non-suicidal comparisons. Effect sizes of risk factors were also analyzed within
four additional domains (attempters, ideators, ideators & attempters, and
completrs). Results indicate that age and perception had the largest effects for
attempts, while psychological disorders had the least effect. Effects for ideators
were largest for substance use and medical problems, while religion was
smallest. In a group of ideators and attempters, age was again found to have the
largest effect while medical problems had the least. Lastly, factors associated
with perception and psychological disorder had the greatest effect for completers
while religion had the least effect. Effects of several factors such as religion,
location, family, and ethnic variables did not change across suicidal subgroups
suggesting that although their effects were not largest, they remained constant
across behaviors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3071 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Lemon, Dedra Deann |
| Contributors | Reynolds, Cecil |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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