“Differences Between Age and Sex in Adolescent Suicide
Your active participation in the discussions is essential to your overall success this term. Discussion questions will help you make meaningful connections between the course content and the larger concepts of the course. Due to the sensitive nature of the article for this assignment, you will interact privately with your instructor for this discussion.
In the article, “Differences Between Age and Sex in Adolescent Suicide,” by Lee, Dwyer, Paul, Clarke, Treleaven, and Roseby (2019), the methods in Chapter 17 (17.3) of your textbook were used to analyze the data. Please refer to this article in the Reading and Resources area of this week’s module. Use Table 1, and Figures 1 and 2 in the article to respond to the following:
1. Describe one type of stressor that occurred statistically significantly more often in one age group over another (older vs younger). Describe which age group was more likely to be affected by this stressor and by how much.
2. Which method of suicide are females statistically significantly more likely to use as compared to males? Which method do males tend to use more than females? What other results are provided or what other data could be presented to help explain this finding?
3. Describe the story that is being told by Figure 1 and Figure 2. Then explain why the order of the colored lines (top to bottom) is different between the two graphs.
Regarding suicide methods, females were found to be statistically significantly more likely to use hanging as a method of suicide than males (females: 37.2%; males: 18%). On the other hand, males were found to be more likely than females to use firearms as an approach for taking their own life (males: 11%; females: 0%). These results could potentially be explained by cultural gender norms and expectations which suggest that women should take on less violent roles than men in society, resulting in fewer opportunities for them to access firearms or other deadly weapons traditionally associated with masculinity such as knives. Additionally, presenting further data regarding psychological factors such as mental health diagnosis or substance abuse may also help explain these findings as well.