Citation

Tortolero SR, Roberts RE. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 2001; 31(2): 214-223.

Affiliation

University of Texas Houston Health Science Center, School of Public Health, 77030, USA. stortolero@sph.uth.tmc.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

11459254

Abstract

This report describes ethnic and gender differences in suicide ideation among two large samples of middle school students in New Mexico (n = 2,140) and Texas (n = 1,302). Students completed a self-administered questionnaire on suicide ideation and psychosocial risk factors. Mexican Americans in both samples reported significantly higher prevalence of suicide ideation than did their European American counterparts. Mexican Americans were 1.8 times more likely to have high suicide ideation than European Americans. The suicide ideation risk for Mexican Americans remained unchanged in both samples after adjusting for gender, age, family structure, depression, low social support, and self-esteem. This study indicates that ethnicity plays an important role in suicidal ideation, but the mechanism remains unclear.