Campus tragedy: A study of student suicide.

Abstract

Prior studies of college suicides have neglected the need for an adequate comparison or control group. To remedy this situation, student suicides were compared to their nonsuicidal classmates on selected demographic variables. Suiciding students could be significantly differentiated from their fellow students on the basis of age, class standing, major subject, nationality, emotional condition, and academic achievement. The suicidal students presented similar prodromal patterns which were precipitated by scholastic anxieties, concern over physical health, and difficult interpersonal relationships. Contrary to general belief, the greatest suicidal activity occurred during the beginning, not the final, weeks of the semester. On the basis of changes transpiring in the college population, a future increase of student suicide was predicted. The act of self-destruction rudely challenges our supposed love for life and fear of death. It is always a puzzlement, but in no case is suicide more shocking or bewildering than it is in the college student. For here are a relatively privileged group of persons enjoying valued advantages of youth, intelligence, and educational opportunity. Why should persons, seemingly so rewarded, seek to kill themselves, and, indeed, to commit suicide at a rate significantly in excess of their noncollege peers (Bruyn & Seiden, 196S, p. 76)? This perplexing question—"Why do students suicide?"—has motivated a great deal of concern among college health authorities leading to several studies and evaluations of the problem in American universities

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