Current Problems of Psychiatry

ORYGINAL PAPERS

Curr Probl Psychiatry 2010, 11, 1, 47-52

Department of Psychiatry Medical University in Lublin

Aim: From year to year there has been a continuous increase in suicide attempts by adolescents accompanied by lowering of the age of suicide attempters. The subject literature among the factors linked to suicide among the teenager group, includes the experience of abuse during childhood. The aim of this work was to find the relationship between the experience of abuse during childhood and suicidal behaviour during the period of adolescence as well as to attempt to provide an answer to the question whether in the adolescent suicide attempters there are typical types of the violence experienced. Method: The examined group of suicide attempters included 99 persons as compared to the control group consisting of 301 persons. The adolescents who made suicide attempts underwent examination within 3 days’ period after the attempt. In order to evaluate physical, emotional and sexual abuse as well as general traumas experienced during their childhood the Early Trauma Inventory was used in this work.

Results: The results obtained in the work showed that the adolescents who made suicide attempts had experienced all forms of abuse in their childhood. In most cases, disregarding their sex, they were victims of physical violence or combined with emotional violence. No statistically significant differences occurred as regards the experience of various forms of abuse between the subgroup of adolescents after the first suicide attempt and the subgroup after a consecutive attempt.

Conclusions: The results presented here may be used for designing anti-suicidal strategies and programmes as well as organising support groups for the adolescents who experienced violence in their childhood.