Impact of gender and parents' marital status on adolescents' suicidal ideation

Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2004 Dec;50(4):351-60. doi: 10.1177/0020764004050335.

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of gender and parents' marital status on adolescents' suicidal ideation in a sample of Grade 8 and Grade 9 students (mean age = 14.12 years) in Singapore. Two hundred and seventy-one (149 boys and 122 girls) students completed the junior high school version of the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ-JR) and a short demographic questionnaire. Consistent with our hypothesis, the 2 (Gender) x 2 (Parents' marital status) ANOVA yielded a statistically significant interaction effect as expected. Specifically, tests of simple effects reveal that adolescent boys from single-parent families were found to be significantly higher on suicidal ideation compared with adolescent boys from two-parent families. This difference was not found among adolescent girls--adolescent girls from single-parent and two-parent families did not differ significantly on suicidal ideation. Being a boy in a single-parent home environment may increase one's risk for endorsing clinically significant suicidal ideation.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Demography
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Marital Status*
  • Parents*
  • Sex Factors
  • Singapur
  • Single-Parent Family / ethnology
  • Suicide, Attempted / ethnology*
  • Suicide, Attempted / statistics & numerical data
  • Surveys and Questionnaires