UNDERSTANDING AND PREVENTING STUDENT SUICIDE

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UNDERSTANDING AND PREVENTING STUDENT SUICIDE

• David Lester
• The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey

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Prologue

• Provocation
• Why bother?
• But youre not serious!

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Why Bother?

• My colleges philosophy
• Opened in 1971 under Richard Bjork
• Students are adults
• They live in the community
• They should use community facilities
• No counseling center
• (No NCAA teams)

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• Why are universities in loco parentis
• Parents rarely get blamed
• Are landlords held liable?
• Are companies held liable?
• Civil liability
• Public relations
• Yale student commits suicide off campus
• Depressed? Get out!

5

• Foxconn suicides in China
• Apple and other firms
• Some investigation
• Conditions improved
• Apple and others moved production elsewhere
• January 2012 abusive sweatshops
• Online petitions

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• France Télécom
• 24 suicides at least
• Some away from work
• Some from the building
• One executive responsible for trying modernize
  the company resigned in October 2009

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Why arent you doing more?

• School suicide prevention programs
• Increasing awareness curricula
• Skills-based program to teach social skills,
  problem-solving strategies
• Gatekeeper training
• Staff
• Teachers
• Peer gatekeepers and crisis counselors
• Screening

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• Let me ask just two questions of you
• Do you screen all incoming students at your
  institution for psychiatric problems and suicidal
  risk?
• Do you train all faculty to be gatekeepers?
• (Dont laugh)

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Suicide in the United States

• Many efforts
• Government funding
• Research
• NGOs
• American Association of Suicidology
• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
• And many more organizations
• But the suicide rate here is low

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• Year male female
• Japan 2007 35.8 13.7
• Finland 2007 28.9 9.0
• Belgium 1999 27.2 9.5
• France 2006 25.5 9.0
• Austria 2007 23.8 7.4
• Switzerland 2006 23.5 11.7
• New Zealand 2005 18.9 6.3
• Sweden 2006 18.1 8.3
• Germany 2006 17.9 6.0
• USA 2005 17.7 4.5
• Denmark 2006 17.5 6.4
• Ireland 2007 17.4 3.8
• Canada 2004 17.3 5.4
• Norway 2006 16.8 6.0
• Australia 2004 16.7 4.4
• Netherlands 2007 11.6 5.0
• United Kingdom 2007 10.1 2.8
• Italy 2006 9.9 2.8

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• male female
• Belarus 2003 63.3 10.3
• Lithuania 2007 53.9 9.8
• Russia 2006 53.9 9.5
• Hungary 2005 42,3 11,2
• Estonia 2005 35.5 7.3
• Latvia 2007 34.1 7.7
• USA 2005 17.7 4.5
• From www.who.int

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• Steven Stack
• deaths from suicide for those 18-24
• Students 16.7
• Non-students 14.4
• Suicide rate
• Big Ten 7.1
• Three samples 6.5, 7.0, 9.4
• Berkeley (1950s) 12.4
• Americans aged 15-24 in 2009 10.1

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Understanding Suicide in College Students

• A great deal of research on suicidal ideation and
  attempted suicide in college students
• The goal is to learn about suicide in general
• Not about suicide in college students
• For example, a study by Lamis and Malone (2011)

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Langhinrichsen-Rohling, et al. (2011)

• Personality Psychopathology
• Depression
• Affect dysregulation
• Anger/hostility
• Hopelessness
• Alcohol abuse
• Delinquency/conduct
• Risky behavior/impulsivity

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• Gender Sexuality
• Body image/eating disorder
• Sexual orientation
• Cross-gender role

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• Social Disruption
• Childhood psychology/physical abuse
• Sexual abuse
• Dating violence
• Physical assault victim
• Bullying
• Family instability/loss/divorce/violence
• Thwarted belongingness
• Perceived burdensomeness

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• Stress Life
• Achievement/school problems
• Interpersonal problems
• Health problems
• Prior suicidal behavior

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• Coping strategies
• Social support seeking
• Problem solving coping
• Emotionally expressive coping
• Using humor to cope
• College-Specific Problems
• Procrastination
• Perfectionism
• Optimism

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The College Environment

• Greater academic demands
• Being on ones own in a new environment with new
  responsibilities
• Changes in family relationships and ones social
  life
• Financial responsibilities
• Exposure to new people, ideas and temptations
• Being away from home, often for the first time
• Making decisions on a higher level than one is
  used to
• Substance abuse
• Awareness of ones sexual identity and
  orientation
• Preparing for life after graduation

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• Two-year community colleges
• Local colleges
• Colleges distant from home
• Colleges in a foreign country
• Online colleges

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• Living at home
• Living in a dormitory on campus
• Living in an apartment on campus
• Living in an apartment in town
• Living in a fraternity/sorority

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• Single
• Married
• With children
• Divorced/separated
• Veteran
• Disabled

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Stressors

• Holmes and Rahe stress scale
• College stress scales
• Academic
• Housing
• Financial
• Social isolation
• Homesickness
• Career indecision
• Peer pressures toward risky behaviors

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Stressful universities

• Stanford University
• Columbia University
• MIT
• University of Pennsylvania
• Harvard University
• Based on cost, competitiveness, acceptance rate,
  engineering rank, crime on campus

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Other sources of stress

• Violence on campus
• Sexual assaults
• Hate crimes
• Hazing
• Avengers (students, faculty and staff)
• Riots
• Arson and bombing

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Graduate students

• Lifetime serious suicidal ideation
• Undergraduates 18
• Graduate students 15
• Past year suicide attempt
• Undergraduates 0.85
• Graduate students 0.30
• Precipitating factor school problems
• 43 and 45, respectively
• Protective factor wanting to finish school
• 39 and 32, respectively

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Stressors for graduate students

• Family (spouse and children divorce)
• Dependency on one professor (thesis advisor)
• Sexual abuse
• Working on professors research (often no credit)
• Professor moves elsewhere (or denied tenure)
• Rewards for criticizing fellow students papers
• Poor job prospects in many fields
• Elitism (rejecting jobs at low prestige colleges)

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Other risk factors

• Perfectionism, especially at high status
  universities and for some groups of students
• Language problems for foreign students

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• Acculturation
• Racism and sexism
• Conflicts between achieving in America and
  staying trueto ones culture
• Found in Native Americans, African Americans,
  Hispanic Americans and Asian American students
• One must not seek to be better than ones peers
• For women, the pressure to get married and have
  children rather than a career
• For African Americans, accusations of becoming
  too white, especially for African American women

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Protective factors

• One can live at home
• On campus, one has friends, , resident advisors,
  faculty, mental health services
• Less crime (although still some crime)
• Fewer lethal means for suicide

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Should suicidal students be forced to leave?

• Bernard and Bernard studied students who had
  threatened or attempted suicide
• Cause
• Academic pressures 7
• Romantic pressures 52
• Family problems 21
• Stay in college?
• 80 did so and felt that this was the correct
  decision

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Potentially Good Programs

• Screening
• Emory University
• University of California San Diego Medical School
• Gatekeeper-training
• Syracuse University
• Cornell University
• Web-sites for information
• Cornell University