The purpose this study was to investigate the influence of demographic factors, personal characteristics, frequency and length of running away, and conditions at youth shelters on suicide attempts among runaway adolescents, girls and boys. To accompli...
The purpose this study was to investigate the influence of demographic factors, personal characteristics, frequency and length of running away, and conditions at youth shelters on suicide attempts among runaway adolescents, girls and boys. To accomplish this, I analyzed a secondary dataset on suicide attempts among 386 adolescents obtained from the 2010 study on the actual conditions of runaway adolescents and youth shelters conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Korea Youth Shelter Association. The following methods were employed for analysis: Descriptive statistics, independent t-test, correlation analysis and logistic regression analysis. The results of the analysis can be summarized as follows.
First, gender differences in suicide attempts analyzed across general characteristics (demographics, personal, family, running away and shelter), showed that there was a statistical significant difference between the female and male participants according to age, level of education, level of happiness, experience with smoking, experiences with sexual victimization and number of times running away from home. Suicide attempts were slightly higher among girls about 16 years old with middle or high school education, most of whom had below average grades. Results from the personal factors showed that girls had a lower level of happiness and were more often exposed to experiences of sexual victimization, while boys had more experience with smoking. The runaway factors showed that boys had run away from home more often than girls. Girls had more suicide attempts than boys.
Second, the most important differences within the adolescent boys’ group, between those who had attempted suicide and those who had not, was that the group of boys who had attempted suicide had a lower level of happiness, more experiences with smoking and drinking, and more experiences as both physical abuser and sexual abusee. This group also had a lower level of satisfaction with the overall life in shelters. A similar comparison between the girls who had attempted suicide and those who had not attempted suicide showed that the group of girls who had attempted suicide had a lower level of happiness, more experiences with smoking and drinking, and more often had been sexually abused. The group had also more often been exposed to parental neglect and they had been away from home longer, the group furthermore had a lower level of satisfaction with overall life in shelter.
Third, key factors according to the gender of the suicide attempt groups showed that adolescent girls had a lower level of happiness compared to their male counterparts and adolescent girls were also more exposed to sexual abuse that the boys.
Fourth, results from analysis of other important factors predicting suicide attempts according to the gender of the participants showed that happiness had a statistical significant influence on adolescent boys’ suicide attempt, as well as girls’. Moreover, the analysis showed that parental neglect and the length of stay away from home had a statistically significant influence on adolescent girls’ suicide attempts.
Based on the key findings of this study the following suggestions are made to solve and prevent suicide attempts among run away adolescent.
In accordance with the findings showing that runaway adolescents’ suicide attempts increases as their happiness decreases, intervention for parental neglect is proposed to increase the runaways adolescents’ happiness and thereby decrease their suicide attempts. It is also recommended to increase the quality of the shelters used by runaway adolescents.
Because parental neglect was a contributing factor to suicide attempt for teenage girls, intervention for family problems is needed. There is an urgent need to establish adequate social services to provide treatment and emotional support for neglected adolescent.
Furthermore, findings showed that the length of stay away from home influenced runaway adolescent girls’ suicide attempts. Therefore, for adolescents finding it difficult to return to their family, and consequently spending a prolonged length of time away from home, a new type of shelter and policies are needed to create permanent protection measures.