Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, 5849 University Avenue, Halifax, NS, B3H 3H7, Canada.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2012 Oct;47(10):1549-55. doi: 10.1007/s00127-011-0461-x. Epub 2011 Dec 27.
Few studies of adolescent suicidality have examined its associations with social capital. We explored associations of measures of individual level social capital with self-reported suicide ideation and suicide attempt in adolescents in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, controlling for other factors known to be associated with adolescent suicidality.
We surveyed 1,597 grade 10-12 students at three high schools in 2006 using self-completion questionnaires. Both sexes were combined for analysis. Outcome measures were suicidal ideation and attempt in the previous year. Measures of social capital included perceptions of trustworthiness and helpfulness of others at school, frequency of religious attendance and participation in extracurricular activities. Logistic regressions were carried out to determine associations of social capital with suicidality while controlling for other factors.
Perceived trustworthiness and helpfulness were protective for suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in the previous year. In adjusted analyses, there were interactions of gender and social capital-females reporting more social capital were more protected from suicide attempt relative to males with similar levels of social capital.
This study provides initial evidence of protective associations of individual level social capital with adolescent suicidality. Our findings suggest that among adolescents low social capital as measured by perceptions of trust and helpfulness of others at school may be a warning sign for suicidality, particularly for females. It may be helpful to inquire of young people how they perceive the trustworthiness and helpfulness of their school environment as a measure of how supportive that environment might be to them when they are facing challenges to their mental health.
很少有研究探讨青少年自杀意念与社会资本之间的关系。本研究旨在探讨个体层面社会资本与自杀意念和自杀企图之间的关联，以控制与青少年自杀意念相关的其他因素。
2006 年，我们对加拿大新斯科舍省布雷顿角的三所高中的 1597 名 10-12 年级学生进行了横断面调查，采用自填式问卷。对所有性别数据进行合并分析。因变量为前一年的自杀意念和自杀企图。社会资本的测量指标包括在学校感知到的他人的可信赖性和帮助意愿、宗教出勤率和课外活动参与度。进行逻辑回归分析以确定社会资本与自杀意念之间的关联，同时控制其他因素。
感知到的可信赖性和帮助意愿对自杀意念和自杀企图具有保护作用。在调整后的分析中，性别与社会资本之间存在交互作用，与具有相似社会资本水平的男性相比，报告有更多社会资本的女性自杀企图的保护作用更强。
本研究为个体层面社会资本与青少年自杀意念之间存在保护关联提供了初步证据。我们的研究结果表明，在青少年中，学校环境中他人的可信赖性和帮助意愿的感知（作为社会资本的衡量指标）较低，可能是自杀意念的一个预警信号，尤其是对女性而言。询问年轻人如何看待学校环境的可信赖性和帮助意愿，可能有助于了解该环境对他们心理健康面临挑战时的支持程度。
