Activity involvement among suicidal and nonsuicidal high-risk and typical adolescents

The purpose of this study was to compare weekly activities among four group s of randomly selected high-risk and typical high school students: (1) pote ntial dropouts at suicide risk, (2) typical youth at suicide risk, (3) pote ntial dropouts not at suicide risk, and (4) typical youth not at suicide ri sk. Of the 1,286 participants, 39.4% of the high-risk and 30.1% of typical high school students screened in at suicide risk. Weekly activity compariso ns across the four groups showed that suicide-risk adolescents, regardless of potential dropout status, engaged in more solitary activities on weekday s and weekends than did their nonsuicide risk peers. High-risk potential dr opout youth engaged in less homework and more social activities during week -days and weekends than did the typical high school students. These results provide important insight into the weekly activity involvement of atrisk y outh while helping to gain a better understanding of suicide-risk adolescen ts. Implications of these findings are discussed for identifying youth at r isk for suicidal behavior and for prevention programming.