South African adolescents - like their peers around the world â struggle to keep their
emotional health intact. These problems are revealed by the youthsâ involvement in
risky activities such as suicidal behaviour. The steady increase in suicidal behaviour
in South Africa makes it imperative to understand the contextual resources and
dispositional factors which can act as potential protectors in adolescent suicide; and
also to understand the psychosocial risk factors experienced by South African
adolescents at risk of suicide. Suicidal ideation has been proved to be a good
predictor of suicide risk and was therefore taken as the criterion variable in the
current study. A high level of suicide risk among the participants was determined by
cut off scores of above 31; and low levels by cut off scores of below 16 on the Suicidal
Ideation Questionnaire. The adolescents in the present study with a high suicide risk
(N=214) brings the incidence of suicidal ideation to 36% for the current study.
The primary aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between a
contextual resource (social support from family and friends) and suicidal ideation in
a community sample of (N=594) grade 8 to 10 learners from an urban area in the
Western Cape region, South Africa. Social support from family and friends was
measured with The Perceived Social Support from Family and Friends Scale. A
hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the support from family and friends
explained 21,5% of the variance of suicidal ideation with support from family being
more important than support from friends. The unique contribution of the present
study was that social support differed for population groups but not for gender and
family structure.
Secondly, the present study aimed to determine how adolescents with high risk and
those with low risk for suicide differed with regard to the dispositional factors of selfesteem,
hope, sense of coherence and cognitive style. The 214 adolescents with a high
suicide risk and 267 adolescents with a low suicide risk were compared in terms of these dispositional factors. The results from the MANOVA and ANOVA analyses
indicated that adolescents with a high risk of suicide displayed lower self-esteem, a
weaker sense of coherence and made more negative attributions for negative life
events.
The third aim of the present study was to explore the psychosocial risk factors
experienced by adolescents. The participants with a high risk of suicide (N=214)
were asked to give their opinions on adolescent suicide. These qualitative responses
were analysed using the method of content analysis. From this analysis it was clear
that adolescents experienced numerous risks, which were given in the following order
of prominence: individual factors (substance abuse; negative emotional experiences;
self-esteem; problem-solving ability and hope for the future); family environments
and family relationships; peer group and romantic relationships; stressful life events;
and socio-economic factors.
The findings from the present study suggested that a supportive family; a healthy selfesteem;
a sense of coherence; and an optimistic explanatory style could be protective
mechanisms in lowering the identified risks of substance abuse, feeling stressed, a
troubled family environment and poor parent-child relationships found among
suicidal adolescents in South Africa.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-07232013-102202 |
| Date | 23 July 2013 |
| Creators | Tancred, Hester Maria |
| Contributors | Dr HS van den Berg, Prof DA Louw |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-07232013-102202/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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