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Depression, Hopelessness, and Self‐Esteem: Accounting for Suicidality in Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatients
Author(s) -
Dori Galit A.,
Overholser James C.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1943-278x.1999.tb00526.x
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , psychology , psychiatry , clinical psychology , feeling , suicide prevention , self esteem , injury prevention , poison control , suicidal ideation , medicine , medical emergency , social psychology , economics , macroeconomics
The present study was designed to examine depression, hopelessness, and self‐esteem as related to suicidal behavior in three groups of depressed adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Depressed adolescents who had never attempted suicide were compared to depressed adolescents who had attempted suicide once and to depressed adolescents who had attempted suicide on several different occasions. Results showed that suicidal adolescents experienced significantly greater depression and hopelessness than did the nonsuicidal adolescents. However, all three groups of depressed adolescents reported similar low levels of self‐esteem. Measures of depression and hopelessness were useful in classifying the adolescents based on their suicidal behavior. Results suggest that the treatment of suicidal adolescents could benefit from strategies that focus on reducing feelings of depression and hopelessness.