This study was designed to empirically analyze the correlation among adolescents' experience of being abused, suicidal ideation and alexithymia. For this purpose, a survey involving 824 adolescents who attend middle or high school in Seoul or Gyeonggi...
This study was designed to empirically analyze the correlation among adolescents' experience of being abused, suicidal ideation and alexithymia. For this purpose, a survey involving 824 adolescents who attend middle or high school in Seoul or Gyeonggi province was conducted.
The major findings of the study would be presented as follows.
Of all the adolescents surveyed, 60.0% responded they had been abused by the experience being inflicted on them. As for the types of abuse, emotional abuse was the most frequently committed, followed by physical abuse and neglect. The study estimated the incidence of suicidal ideation, being 19.34 point on average, which means most adolescents experienced suicidal ideation during last year; the level of alexithymia reached 36.95 point which is commonly referred to as the normal rage.
First, compared with high school students, middle school students had more experiences of being neglected. In particular, adolescents whose economic standard of living was relatively low had more severe experiences of emotional abuse than those whose economic standard of living was average or above. Whereas high living standard adolescents were exposed to more physical abuse than those below average living standards.
Second, female adolescents had more suicidal ideation than male ones. In addition, adolescents who attained low academic performance were more likely to suicidal ideation than those who achieved average or high economic performance. Adolescents having low economic living standard experienced more suicidal ideation than those with average or high economic living standard. Moreover, adolescents who said they had experienced abuse had more suicidal ideation than those who had not.
Third, alexithymia was difference in academic performance and economic living standard, and adolescents with low academic performance had difficulties in experiencing and expressing their emotion than those who achieved average or high academic performance. Adolescents with low economic living standard experienced difficulty to perceive and express emotions more than adolescents with average or high economic living standard. Furthermore, adolescents who had experienced abuse showed more alexithymia than those who had not.
With regard to the relationship among the adolescents' abuse experience, suicidal ideation and alexithymia, their abuse experience was found positively related to their suicidal ideation. Also, adolescents who had a lot of experience of childhood abuse victimization had experienced difficulty of alexithymia more than others. As suicidal ideation increased, the level of alexithymia also increased and these three factors turned out to be related meaningfully. Furthermore, the adolescents' abuse experience had affected suicidal ideation and alexithymia, implying that the more experience of child abuse victimization adolescents had, the more often they thought of suicidal ideation and have difficulties in understanding and expressing emotion.
In conclusion, this study found that adolescents' abuse experience was related to suicidal ideation and alexithymia. Adolescents' abuse experience was found to influence both their suicidal ideation and alexithymia. In addition, those having low economic living standard turned out to suffer from suicidal ideation and alexithymia more than other adolescents. For these reasons, the study not only emphasized the necessity of ending abuse but also suggested that various efforts, to find the causes of adolescent suicide and to develop programs that improves the environment and treats adolescents' mentality, should be made for the prevention of adolescent suicide.