Gender differences in adolescents and young adults with suicidal behavior
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Gender differences in adolescents and young adults with suicidal behavior.
Suicidal behavior has become a serious developing problem in the western countries. Since 1950 the suicide rate for adolescents aged 15-19 years has increased 400%, from 2.7 per 100,000 in 1950 to 11.3 per 100,000 in 1988, while the overall suicide rate for the general population has remained constant. The lifetime risk for suicide is about 2 to 4 times higher for men than women, but females are 3 to 9 times more likely to attempt suicide. The journal sited several reasons for this explanation: first of all, males were found to show more aggressive behaviors, to be more orientated towards success, and to show more risk-taking and injury-producing behaviors than females. Adolescent males used more lethal methods for suicide, which increased the probability of completed suicides. Women might have less access to firearms, and researchers say this could explain the higher rate of suicide attempts in females, while the risk for actual completed suicide, resulting in death, is greater in males.
Regarding gender differences, Kneissl (University of Marburg, UK, 1984) investigated a group of patients treated in the Darmstadt hospital following a suicide attempt and found that the female suicide attempters most often named relationships as the main reason for suicidal acts...