9631289 Brower The incidence of completed suicide in adolescents and young adults, age 15-24 more than tripled between 1957 and 1989. Suicide ideation is common with as many as 60 percent of adolescents reporting they have thought about suicide. Suicide attempts by adolescents are reliably associated with depression, mood variability and impulsivity. Research on "self concept" explains mood variability and impulsive behavior and links them to suicide ideation and attempts. In this Dissertation Improvement research, adolescent suicide ideators (SI) and suicide attempters (SA) are hypothesized to be two distinct groups with different cognitive structures of self concept. Assessing the different aspects of self concept will not only enable us to distinguish SI adolescents from SA adolescents but also help identify youth most at risk for suicide attempts. The convenience sample for this study consists of 120 adolescents, age 14-16, recruited voluntary from a pool of inpatients and outpatients who receive mental health services through a number of mental health providers in Dane County and the City of Milwaukee. Demographic data will be collected as well as information from several tests given to participants to measure levels of impulsivity, suicide ideation and threats, and depression. *** ??
