SUICIDALITY, HOPELESSNESS, AND ATTITUDES TOWARD LIFE AND DEATH IN CLINICAL AND NONCLINICAL ADOLESCENTS

To see if hopelessness and four attitudes (attraction to life and deat h and repulsion by life and death) account for the development of suic idality in children, 15 adolescent psychiatric inpatients and 84 middl e and high school students, average age 15.2 years, took a four-item v ersion 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 a dolescents at risk for suicide from those not at risk. Suicidality was negatively related to Attraction to Death and positively related to R epulsion by Life, Attraction to Death, Repulsion by Death, and hopeles sness. Hopelessness was negatively related to Attraction to Life, and positively related to Repulsion by Life and Repulsion by Death. The be st predictors of suicidality were hopelessness and Repulsion by Life. Results imply that reducing feelings of rejection by their families mi ght lessen suicidality in adolescents.