title: Adolescent suicidality in urban minorities and its relationship to conduct disorders, depression, and separation anxiety.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This research investigates personality variables--aggression and disorders of conduct, depression, and separation anxiety--mediating suicidal behavior in psychiatrically hospitalized urban minority adolescents.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four matched groups of 26 subjects (N = 104) participated: suicidal adolescents with, and suicidal adolescents without, a conduct disorder diagnosis, nonsuicidal adolescents with a conduct disorder diagnosis, and a nonpsychiatric control group. Subjects were assessed with three dimensions from the Epigenetic Assessment Rating System (EARS), the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), and the Separation Anxiety Test (SAT).
  
  
  RESULTS
  A conduct disorder diagnosis was related to lower modal EARS scores. The EARS and the CDI each identified a different subset of suicidal adolescents. Adolescents with lower modal EARS scores exhibited greater reactivity to separation experiences on the SAT.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Relying on depressive symptomatology to identify suicidality overlooks a majority of at-risk adolescents. Structural personality variables as measured by the EARS identify and distinguish subsets of suicidal adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn, NY, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Feldman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wilson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001010:Anxiety, Separation / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D011203:Poverty; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D013405:Suicide / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology