| Summary: | 碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 行為科學研究所碩士班 === 94 === The investigation on risk factors for adolescent suicide is a hot issue. However, the relationships between adolescent suicide and risk factors in many original studies are often inconsistent. In this study, the researcher adopts meta-analysis techniques to analyze 195 journal articles, theses, and dissertations on adolescent suicide issues. Of these reviewed materials, 167 journal articles published abroad between January 1995 and June 2005 are retrieved from PsycInfo and SocioFile computerized databases. Only twenty-eight journal articles, theses, and dissertations written by Taiwanese researchers before June 2005 are retrieved. Suicidal behaviors, complex and multi-faceted, are caused by the interactions between various kinds of risk factors. Both suicidal behaviors and associated risk factors are categorized into different types. Suicidal behaviors are categorized into four types: suicidal ideation, suicidal attempt, suicidal completion and suicidal risk. As for risk factors, they are categorized into eleven types: injury history, mental illness, affect, cognition, behavior, personality trait, family structure, family function, school problem, stress, and social support. Thus, an overall understanding of the degree of relationship between different types of suicidal behaviors and risk factors can be obtained. The demographic and study characteristic variables which are potential sources of heterogeneity of study results in original studies are also investigated.
There are some major findings. First, the relationships between adolescent suicide and different types of risk factors are significant, but the degrees of relationship are rather varied, ranging from small to large effect sizes. The three most significant types of risk factors associated with adolescent suicide are affect, cognition, and personality trait. Second, distinct degrees of relationship exist in different types of suicidal behaviors and risk factors, and the affective risk factors have strong relationships with all types of suicidal behaviors. Third, demographic variables, such as gender and age, and study characteristics, such as type of sample, quality of study, type of research design and year of publication, are the sources of variation in the relationships between adolescent suicide and risk factors, and are respectively different in these relationships as well.
The cumulative studies on examining the risk factors in adolescent suicide have been sufficient. To gain a more in depth and comprehensive understanding of adolescent suicidal behaviors, future researchers should not restrict to certain types of risk factors based on a single theory. Future efforts should aim at building models of relationships between multiple risk factors and adolescent suicide and developing an eclectic approach to integrating various theoretical perspectives.
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