Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Acceptance Among Age Cohorts

Ames, IA

Young people experience suicide ideation at high rates, 11.8%, and suicide is the second leading cause of death from age 10 to 34 (CDC, 2017, NIMH, 2019). The rates of suicide have increased by 35% for all age groups from 1999 to 2018. Reasons for young people being at such high risk could be due to rising use of social media and the internet, personality traits, or cultural contexts. However, less is known about how differing attitudes could influence ideation, and whether there is an interaction between age and attitudes. Participants (N= 302, M = 36.79, SD = 16.66) were recruited through Amazon MTurk, Winona State University, and Winona community organizations. They were asked to complete an online survey. Their data were used to measure the relationship between age and ideation, attitudes about suicide and ideation, and the interaction between age and attitudes about suicide. Significant results were found for the three hypotheses. Attitudes about suicide were found to be related to increased ideation. Results also indicated that younger individuals have higher rates of ideation. There was also a significant interaction between young age and suicide acceptance. This would indicate that greater acceptance of suicide among young people is associated with greater ideation than it is for older people. That may indicate greater risk for young people with accepting attitudes towards suicide, but more research is warranted.