The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of school environment on the suicide ideation of adolescents and the path of the influence of the school environmental factors on that through ego-resilience, which was selected as a parameter. It's...
The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of school environment on the suicide ideation of adolescents and the path of the influence of the school environmental factors on that through ego-resilience, which was selected as a parameter. It's meant to find out a pervasive trend in adolescents and any possible gender gaps at the same time.
Earlier studies and relevant literature were reviewed, and a survey was implemented to serve the purpose.
The subjects in this study were high school sophomores who dwelled in Seoul. After a survey was conducted, the answer sheets from 316 students were analyzed. The questionnaires used in the study covered general characteristics, academic stress, experience of suffering school violence, peer relationship, relationship with teachers, suicide ideation and ego-resilience. As for data analysis, frequency analysis and multiple regression analysis were carried out, and an AMOS 4.1 program was employed to make a path analysis.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, in regard to the impact of school environment on the suicide ideation of the teenagers, all the four subfactors of school environments that involved academic stress, experience of suffering school violence, peer relationship and relationship with teachers affected their suicide ideation on the whole. When the boys and girls were separately investigated, school instruction that was part of academic stress had the greatest impact on the suicide ideation of the teenaged boys, followed by studies and experience of suffering school violence. In the event of the girls, emotional stability that was part of peer relationship was most influential, followed by help from friends, academic standing(part of academic stress) and experience of suffering school violence. In other words, all the four subfactors of school environments exerted an influence on suicide ideation, and there was a gender gap between the boys and girls in that regard. The boys were more affected by academic stress, and the girls was more impacted by peer relationship. Overall, academic stress was identified as a factor that affected both of the boys and girls.
Second, a structural equation model was utilized by selecting ego- resilience as a parameter to explore in which path the school environmental factors exercised an influence on the suicide ideation of the adolescents. And some of the factors had a firsthand impact on suicide ideation, whereas the others affected it in a secondhand manner through the medium of ego-resilience. It implied that it would be more effective to consider the parameter when an intervention strategy is selected.
Overall, ego-resilience had a mediating effect as a parameter on the relationship of suicide ideation to academic standing, instruction and studies, which belonged to academic stress, and to help, which belonged to peer relationship. Those factors had something in common in that the factors could be controlled and managed by adolescents themselves. It denotes that ego-resilience could function as an individual and internal adjustive personality resource, and that teenagers should be taught to foster their ego-resilience to help themselves when their reality is so harsh as to think of suicide.
This study focused on the fact that suicide ideation is the origin of youth suicide, and stressed the importance of school environments as what affects youth suicide. The factors that impacted on suicide ideation were grasped, and then a structural equation model was employed to make a path analysis of suicide ideation in detail. Ego-resilience, which is a relatively new concept, was selected as a parameter, and the characteristics of ego-resilience as an individual and internal personality resource were discussed to prove the mediating role of it between school environments and suicide ideation. As there appeared gaps between the boys and girls in that aspect, it's suggested in this study to develop suicide prevention models and ego-resilience programs in consideration of gender characteristics.