DID YOU KNOW....


College-entering deaf and hard-of-hearing freshmen and hearing freshmen,
from a wide variety of hometowns throughout the US, took the National
Center for Deaf Health Research (NCDHR) Health Behavior Survey (HBS) -
Modified English Version in September 2005. The survey contained one
item that asked students whether they had thought about committing
suicide within the past 12 months (suicide ideation) and one item that
asked students how often they had really attempted to commit suicide
within the past 12 months (suicide attempts).



Several additional survey items probed aspects of mental health,
potential prior abuse and neglect, and substance use.



Deaf and hard of hearing students had similar overall levels of suicide
ideation (12.0%) to hearing students (14.1%) but had a significantly
higher incidence of reported suicide attempts (8.3%) than hearing
students (3.1%).



This increased incidence of reported suicide attempts was apparently
restricted to deaf and hard of hearing women. For deaf and hard of
hearing women, but not for deaf and hard of hearing men, lower reading
skills were associated with an increased incidence of reported suicide
attempts and an increased incidence of reported suicide ideation. This
relationship was not caused by a failure of survey item comprehension
due to poor reading skill. In addition, reported suicide attempts and
reported suicide ideation were related to various mental health, prior
abuse and neglect, and substance use items for deaf and hard of hearing
women and men and for hearing women and men.



The results suggest that, at college entry, deaf and hard of hearing
women with relatively poor reading skill may be at substantial risk for
attempted suicide. This increased risk could be due to interactions
between gender-related traits and potential suicide mediating factors
such as the psychological consequences of life-long reading failure,
depression, other mental health factors, prior abuse and neglect, and
substance use. Understanding these interactions, and the specific roles
of gender and reading skill as suicide risk factors, may help to develop
intervention procedures that target specific subgroups of deaf and
hard-of-hearing students at high risk for attempted suicide.





Pacific Rim Conference Presentation:
Samar, V.J., Pollard, R., Sutter, E., Klein, J.D., Barnett, S., O'hearn,
A., Lalley, P., Fogg, T.

(2007). Deaf young adults' self-reported suicide attempt rate: role of
reading and gender,

Pacific Rim Disability Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii,

March 13-14.
Abstract:





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