Prevalence of Specific Suicidal Behaviors in a High School Sample

Of 380 high school students who completed an anonymous survey concerned with their experience with suicidal behavior, 60 % reported that they had thought about killing themselves. These thoughts varied with respect to persistence and plan fulness. Almost 9 % reported that they had actually made at least one attempt to kill themselves and over half of the suicide attempters reported at least two attempts. Fewer than half of the attempters reached the attention of mental health professionals. The data on family history of suicidal behavior suggest that the suicidal ideators and the suicide attempters represent overlapping groups. (Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:1203-1206) A lmost one-quarter of all adolescent deaths are from suicide. The frequency and form of other suicidal or self-destructive behaviors (i.e., thoughts, plans, and attempts) in this age group remain relatively unclear. If the range of suicidal behaviors reflects an underlying continuum or spectrum rather than discrete behaviors, information regarding each type of suicidal behavior is important. Without such information, the development of effective intervention and prevention techniques is difficult. The prevalence of suicidal behavior in the general population and among specific subgroups has been minimally studied. The prevalence of suicidal ideation among adults has been explored primarily via epide-miological studies (1-4). According to these investiga-tions, 2.3%-SS % of those interviewed or surveyed reported that they had engaged in some type of suicidal ideation, and 0.6%-2.7 % reported that they ha