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Community Reactions to Attempted and Completed Child Suicide

NCJ Number
112696
Journal
Journal of Applied Social Psychology Volume: 18 Issue: 13 Dated: (October 1988) Pages: 1085-1093
Author(s)
L M Range; J W Kastner
Date Published
1988
Length
9 pages
Annotation
In order to assess community reactions to attempted and completed child suicide, 180 shoppers were asked to read a short newspaper article about a 10-year-old who either (a) attempted suicide, (b) completed suicide, (c) completed suicide after having previously attempted, (d) was psychiatrically hospitalized, (e) died of a viral illness, or (f) died of an accident.
Abstract
Subject then completed a 9-item Likert scale designed to assess their reactions. A 2 x 6 (Gender of Victim x Type of Incident) multivariate analysis of variance indicated a significant effect only for type of incident. Families of psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents received milder reactions than families of suicide attempters, in terms of (a) other's assessment of their psychological health, (b) how long they were expected to be sad or depressed, and (c) how tense respondents expected to be while visiting them. Apparently, families of suicide attempters must face many of the same negative community reactions as families whose loved ones actually die by suicide, whereas families who have a loved one psychiatrically hospitalized face less problematic reactions from others in the community. (Author abstract)

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