Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to D Lester.
The earlier observation that students who had attempted suicide had lower scores on external locus of control than nonsuicidal ones was confirmed for 63 police officers. However, depression was associated with higher external scores.
This paper explores the rate of suicide in teenagers in Canada by comparing this to the United States' rate. The data clearly show that the rates of suicide in late (15 to 19 yr.) adolescent boys is higher in Canada, suggesting that Canada may be facing a relative crisis. These findings are interpreted to suggest that there is a greater need for Canadian sociocultural research and response.
For 32 men and 53 women undergraduates, scores on religiosity were positively associated with those on psychological disturbance. This observation is consistent with Ellis's expectation presented in 1982.
In 28 male and 42 female college students, rs between scores for Psychoticism, Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Lying from the Eysenck Personality Inventory and a measure of sympathetic dominance were of low magnitude, failing to support Eysenck's hypothesis that neuroticism is associated with imbalance in the autonomic nervous system.
19 mobile, intensive care paramedics and 21 RNs scored similarly on Rotter's I-E scale and on a 15-item attitude inventory. Aware of dangers associated with treating people with AIDS, they do not want to change careers and, on the average, agree slightly that they treat AIDS patients like other patients.
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Two hypotheses were considered for the association between accidental death rates and suicide rates: (1) that suicidal deaths may be misclassified occasionally as accidental deaths, and (2) that accidental death rates provide an index of the availability of methods for suicide. Correlations over time produced results supporting the second hypothesis.
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The present paper presents a feminist transformation of the study of suicide, following a stage model proposed by Schuster and Van Dyne for the feminist transformation of research in general: (1) invisible women, (2) the search for missing female scholars or suicide, (3) suicidal women as disadvantaged, (4) suicidal women studied on their own terms, and (5) a genuine transformation of the perspectives guiding the field of study. In particular, it has been suggested that a feminist transformation of suicidology would lead us to focus on attempted suicide as the norm while viewing completed suicide as a failed behavior in which the individual inappropriately died.
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The teenage suicide rate in Zimbabwe did not change much during the 1970s, though the rate rose for female teenagers. Female teenagers used poison as a method of suicide more often than did adults, and self-immolation had increased in frequency among young women by the mid-1980s.
Thirteen famous writers who completed suicide during this Century were analyzed for common themes in their lives. Affective disorder and depression were found to be common. In addition, alcohol abuse was present in about a third of the writers. For six of them, the possibility of being unable to continue to write productively played a role in their depression and eventual suicide.
Rates of adolescent attempted suicide were correlated with social indicators over the electoral wards of Edinburgh (Scotland). Rates were found to be higher in wards where child neglect and misbehavior were more common. Rates of attempted suicide in the total population also were related to the housing pattern/social class of the wards. The importance of identifying similarities and differences in the patterns of suicidal behavior of adolescents and adults was noted.
The state variations in suicide by different methods were found to have different social correlates. Only suicide rates by firearms/explosives and by solids/liquids were found to correlate with indices of low social integration/regulation as Durkheim predicted. The results indicate the need for additional explanatory concepts to account for regional variations in suicide rates.
Suicide notes written by completed suicides were compared with suicide notes written by attempted suicides for the three motives for suicide described by Menninger. The motives of escape from pain and anger directed toward others did not differentiate the two samples of notes, but suicide notes written by completed suicides were more likely to have the motive of self-blame.
From a sample of 499 patients admitted to hospitals for suicide attempts, a subsample of 182 suicide attempters who described histories of illicit activities or who were diagnosed with DSM-II anti-social, drug or alcohol personality disorders were compared with another sample of 109 suicide attempters diagnosed as having depressive disorders. The former group of unsocialized attempters obtained similar depression inventory scores as the diagnosed depressive attempters. However, the index attempts of the unsocialized group were made with less suicidal intent than those of the diagnosed depressive patients, and they made more prior suicide attempts than the diagnosed depressive patients.
A regional analysis of suicide rates in the districts of Sri Lanka was carried out, and the results compared to an earlier regional analysis of suicide rates in the states of the USA. Some common results were identified, such as the correlation between suicide rates and interregion migration and the birth rate which were positive in both countries. The importance of simultaneous study of two or more nations in identifying generalizable findings was stressed.
A study of the frequency of car exhaust as a cause of accidental death in the United States from 1968 to 1984 showed that the accidental death rate from car exhaust has declined during the same period during which the toxicity of car exhaust has been reduced through the imposition of emission controls. However, in Great Britain, where there are no emission controls on cars, the accidental death rate from car exhaust has risen slightly over the same period. Thus, the introduction of emission controls on cars to reduce pollution of the environment seems to have had incidental beneficial effects on mortality from accidental poisoning from car exhaust.