Risk and protective factors were examined in suicidal and nonsuicidal public high school students. With life stress and depression as independent risk factors, family cohesion was found to offset the effect of stress, and friendships to have c more indirect effect. Differential effects of ten sources of stress were analyzed from a developmental perspective, and the probability of suicidal behavior associated with clusters of factors was estimated for the general population.

Recent suicidal behavior was reported on a questionnaire by 14% of 272 high school students. Two-thirds of the suicidal teenagers neither received help nor disclosed their self-harm to anyone. Depression and stress--especially family suicidality, feelings of violation, and sexuality--increased the risk, as did parental separation, divorce, and most dramatically, remarriage. Family cohesiveness helped alleviate the risk in the nonintact families.

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