Recklessness,depression, and reasons for living in predicting suicidality in college students

To assess the predictive value of recklessness in suicidality, 155 college students took the Sommerfeldt-Clark Adolescent Experience Scale (S-C), Zung Self-Rating Depression scale, Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL), and the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI). The S-C Suicidal Tendencies subscale accounted for the most variance in suicidality (26.0%) and Coping Beliefs of the Reasons for Living subscale accounted for additional variance (5.6%). Further, the S-C was moderately internally consistent (Cronbach alpha=.83) and had adequate validity, as indicated by significant correlations in the expected directions with the SSI total score (r=.25, p< .01), and RFL total score (r= –.28, p<.001). Recklessness was not a component of suicidality among those non-clinical older adolescents, but may be a factor in clinical or younger samples of adolescents.Received M.A. in Psychology from Xavier University, Ohio. Research interests include suicide, eating disorders, and adolescence.Received Ph.D. from Georgia State University. Research interest: suicide.