Suicide and Depression Among College Students: A Decade Later.
The authors in this article are reporting about the decreasing and increasing depression and suicide rates among college students. They wanted to know what causes these attempts, thoughts, or feelings. What kind of help or if any help was received was also addressed in this article and how can the college or university make the students feel more comfortable.
The correlation method was used in this article. In the 1987 there was a survey done, which consisted of 962 college students. In this study the students came from three different institutions. They were asked questions about if they attempted or thought about suicide or thought they were depressed. There was also a second survey done in this article. In this survey there were four different institutions and 1,455 college students. The students were asked basically the same questions as in the first survey. In addition to those questions there were also questions asked about if anyone went to get help and if actually getting help was useful.
In the first survey that was done 81% of the people said that they experienced some sort of depression. This depression was based on several different factors. Some of the factors were grade problems, relationship problems, loneliness, or money problems. 32% of these people also thought about committing suicide, while only 1% attempted it. In the second survey there were many similarities with the second survey. In the second survey the depression rate had dropped from 81% in the first survey to 53% in the second survey. The rate at which people thought about committing suicide also dropped from 32% to 9%. These rates have changed drastically while the rate at which people actually attempt suicide has stayed the same. The reasons for depression in the college students were still the same from the first survey.
