Understanding Suicide Symptoms and Peer Support in High School Students

The purpose of this paper was to understand emotional health, suicide ideation, and perceptions of support among a high school student body. A total of 649 high school students completed an online survey consisting of demographic questions, emotional health questions, suicide ideation and behavior, and perceived social support questions. The relationship between outcome variables was assessed via Pearson’s r coefficients. Significant group differences in outcome variables were measured via independent sample independent t-tests and Cohen’s d effect sizes. There were significant differences between males and females in fear, sadness, hopelessness, thoughts of death, and of killing oneself. In terms of perceived social support, there were differences between genders for peer support, speaking to an adult for support, perceptions that adult support was helpful, and both knowing and practicing coping skills. These results parallel representative data from previous research with adolescents from the United States and were discussed regarding practical application. Limitations of this study included the underrepresentation of transgender participants, data was only received from self-reported measures, and there was no implementation of an intervention to assess differential impact between genders.