Journal of Research in Medical Education & Ethics

Adolescents face challenges and are exposed to various stressful experiences and risk factors. The statistics show that adolescents are at high risk of committing suicide in almost every country that requires considerable attention. Hence, the current study was carried out to assess the coping and hopelessness of adolescent suicide attempters in selected settings.

Descriptive, cross-sectional and correlational research design was used. A total of 30 adolescent suicide attempters were selected by convenient sampling method. Data were collected using socio-demographic and clinical questionnaire, Beck hopelessness scale and Brief COPE (its not a abbreviation so no need to expand) questionnaire. Statistical tests such as descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to analyse the data.

Hopelessness score of adolescent suicide attempters was high as the mean score was 10.21 with a standard deviation of 2.867. The mean coping score of the subjects was below average as the mean score was 61.05 with a standard deviation of 6.62. There was a negative significant relationship between hopelessness and coping as r =-.61, p<.001. The result suggested that high hopeless adolescents had lower coping.

The findings of the present study clearly mentioned that adolescent suicide attempters had high level of hopelessness and lower coping. Attention should be emphasised in an approach on instilling hope to reduce incidence of suicidal behaviour and to use effective coping methods among adolescents. School counsellors and other mental health professionals are in a place of offering and/or referring adolescent suicide attempters for the appropriate interventions.