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Abstract
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In four non-clinical samples, responses to the Reasons for Living Scale were more complex (that is, a Principal Components analysis extracted more components) in those who had previously consider suicide than in those who had not done so. Suggestions were made for further research.
Much of the research into suicidal behavior has focused on the risk factors for suicide, factors such as substance abuse and psychiatric disorder (Dvorak, Lamis & Malone, 2013). More recently, research has looked at protective factors (Wang, Lightsey, & Tran, 2013), but some protective factors, such as scores on a measure of hope (Davidson, Wingate, Rasmussen, & Slish, 2009), seem to be simply the reverse of risk factors such as score of a measure of hopelessness (Neufeld & O'Rourke, 2009). One exception to this is the inventory devised by Linehan, Goodstein, Nielsen and Chiles (1983) which measures reasons for living. The Reasons for Living Scale has 48 items, answered on a 6-point Likert-scale, ranging from (1) extremely unimportant to (6) extremely important, which comprise six subscales: survival and coping beliefs, responsibility to family, child concerns, fear of suicide, fear of social disapproval, and moral objections.
It seems likely that those who have had considered suicide in the past (and perhaps attempted suicide) might have thought more comprehensively about the reasons for living (as well as the reasons for dying). Their thoughts about this issue might, therefore, be more complex. Since they have contemplated suicide, they may have thought through which reasons were more salient in their decision to engage in suicidal behavior or to refrain from suicidal behavior. Those who have never considered suicide might respond more globally to the questions in the inventory. Therefore, in a factor analysis of the patterns of responding on the Reasons for Living Inventory, individuals who have been suicidal in the past should be more complex. This would be manifest in having more factors (with eigenvalues greater than one) and a smaller percentage of variance of the inter-item correlation matrix accounted for by the first factor...
Language: en |