Hopelessness and suicidal ideation among adolescents in two cultures.
BACKGROUND
This study examines the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations among cognitive variables, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation in Hong Kong Chinese and Caucasian American adolescents.


METHODS
Community adolescents (n = 2,044) ages 14-18 years from Hong Kong and the United States provided information regarding their suicidal ideation, depressive symptoms, and cognitions (self-efficacy, cognitive errors and hopelessness), at two surveys, six months apart.


RESULTS
Self-efficacy was a weak unique predictor of suicidal ideation in both cultures. Hopelessness was the strongest of cognitive variables in concurrent associations with suicidal ideation in bivariate and multivariate models, in both cultures, and in both boys and girls. Hopelessness continued to offer unique prediction when depressive symptoms were controlled, both concurrently and prospectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results support hopelessness theories of suicidal ideation and behavior in Hong Kong, and extend the cognitive theory of suicidality to a modernized Asian culture.
Stewart
Sunita Mahtani
SM
Psychiatry Department, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, TX 75390-8589, USA. Sunita.Stewart@UTSouthwestern.edu
Kennard
Betsy D
BD
Lee
Peter W H
PW
Mayes
Taryn
T
Hughes
Carroll
C
Emslie
Graham
G
D000293:Adolescent; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D003863:Depression / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States