[A cross-sectional study on suicide attempts in urban middle school students in Chengdu].
OBJECTIVE
To study the prevalence and associated factors of suicide attempt in middle school students.


METHODS
Five middle schools in Chengdu were randomly sampled in the study. A total of 1393 students between the ages of 11 and 18 finished a self-administered questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List (ASLEC) and Egma Minnen av Bardodosnauppforstran (EMBU). Everyone who had suicide attempts was interviewed. Data were analysed by SPSS 8.0 (statistical package for the social science) program on computer.


RESULTS
Thirty-six (2.6%) of the 1 393 students has the history of attempted suicide and the ratio of boys and girls was 1:2. Among the suicide attempters, 33.3% had recurrent events. The most common reason of suicide attempts in middle school stage was family conflicts (34.4%) with most common event as taking overdose tranquilizers or poisoning (50.0%). Risk factors of suicide attempt seemed to include hallucination, cigarette smoking, being bullied by peers, wanting to change sex, parents' remarriage, being female, father's refusal, being neglected in childhood and experiencing more events in the previous year. Protecting factor was found to have been family warmness.


CONCLUSIONS
Suicide attempts were not uncommonly seen in middle school students. Clinicians and teaching staff should identify the risk factors and carry out intervention as early as possible.
Zhang
Zhi-qun
ZQ
Department of Psychiatry, Huaxi Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Guo
Lan-ting
LT
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population