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Abstract

Youths who attempt suicide may have many negative feelings about themselves which are manifested in a low level of self-acceptance. This factor is often overlooked in specific assessment and intervention measures while socio-economic and situational variables are treated. Nurses, because of their location in schools, are in a unique position to recognize and intervene with the potentially suicidal youth. Nurses however may have difficulty in recognizing the youth with poor self-acceptance. This exploratory study was undertaken in order to answer the question: 'is a low level of self-acceptance in youths age sixteen to twenty-five correlated with suicide attempts?' The answer was sought from information obtained from youths' self-reports on the Berger Scale of Self-Acceptance and the California Psychological Inventory. These tests were administered to thirty youths divided into three groups. Group A were suicide attempters seen in the emergency ward of a large general hospital, group B were non-suicide attempters seen in the emergency ward and group C were chosen from the community. An analysis of variance was carried out to discover if there was a significant difference in self-acceptance among the three groups. The findings supported the overall conclusion: youths between ages sixteen and twenty-five who attempted suicide had a significantly lower self-acceptance than control group youths. The variable of hospitalization did not effect self-acceptance.