Citation

Perez VW. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 2005; 35(1): 35-49.

Affiliation

Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA. vp@udel.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1521/suli.35.1.35.59267

PMID

15843322

Abstract

The assumed ordinal relationship between seriously considering, planning, and attempting suicide in the 1999 Youth Risk Behavior Survey was examined by constructing a trajectory that identified all possible response patterns among the four questions measuring suicidal activity. Statistical analysis tested for differences in frequency of risk behaviors across levels of the trajectory. Overall, the trajectory provided insight to the progression of adolescent suicidal activity and demonstrated usefulness as a measure of suicidal intent. Significant differences between means of dependent variables at each level of the normative trajectory supported the hypothesis that frequency of risk behaviors increases monotonically with successive suicidal thought and behavior.