Adolescents with cancer: are they at risk for suicide?

When the threat of cancer is imposed during a period of intense developmental changes, it is difficult to envision that an adolescent has a strong enough sense of self to survive. Yet, adolescents with cancer tend to fight to live rather than succumb to death naturally or by suicide. Possible reasons for this fight to survive can be derived from Orbach, Grass, and Glaubman's (1981) model of children's attitudes toward life and death.