Suicidality, hopelessness, and attitudes toward life and death in clinical and nonclinical adolescents

To see if hopelessness and four attitudes (attraction to life and death and repulsion by life and death) account for the development of suicidality in children, 15 adolescent psychiatric inpatients and 84 middle and high school students, average age 15.2 years, took a four-item version of the Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire, the Hopelessness Scale for Children (HSC), and the Multi-Attitude Suicide Tendency Scale for Adolescents (MAST-A). Profiles on the four attitudes differentiated adolescents at risk for suicide from those not at risk. Suicidality was negatively related to Attraction to Death and positively related to Repulsion by Life, Attraction to Death, Repulsion by Death, and hopelessness. Hopelessness was negatively related to Attraction to Life, and positively related to Repulsion by Life and Repulsion by Death. The best predictors of suicidality were hopelessness and Repulsion by Life. Results imply that reducing feelings of rejection by their families might lessen suicidality in adolescents.