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Psychosocial Characteristics of Adolescents with a History of Suicide Attempt

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify psychosocial risk factors uniquely associated with past suicide attempts. Data assessing a large number of variables were available from a representative sample of older adolescents (N = 1,710). Most independent variables were associated with past suicide attempts; variables that remained associated with past attempts after controlling for current depression level included externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors, past psychiatric disorders, depressotypic cognitions, coping, school problems, health problems, and gender. The probability of having made an attempt increased dramatically as a function of the number of risk factors. Females had more risk factors and showed a greater vulnerability to the factors than did males.

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    The authors are from the Oregon Research Institute, Eugene.

    This work has been supported in part by Research Grant No. MH40501 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author. We wish to express our profound appreciation to the individuals, too numerous to list, who assisted with various aspects of this project.

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