The frequency of suicide attempts: a retrospective approach applied to college students.

Suicide attempt rates are usually reported as an annual statistic. However, annual rates may underestimate the cumulative prevalence of attempters since they ignore people whose attempts occurred in years other than the one examined. The authors studied the prevalence of suicide attempters over several years through data gathered from retrospective reports of college students. They found that 15% of the total sample studied (N=293) reported having attempted suicide at one time. This unexpectedly high rate suggests that suicidal behavior is a serious problem among college students and underlines the need for further retrospective studies of the prevalence of suicide attempters.