The importance of ethnicity in the development of identity of black adolescents

Ego-identity status was examined in 20 male and 20 female black junior and senior high school students. Ego-identity was assessed by a semistructured interview measuring questioning and commitment in the traditional areas of occupation, ideology (religion and politics), sexual-interpersonal attitudes and behavior, and the newly added area of ethnicity. The greatest questioning and commitment occurred in the area of ethnicity. Ethnicity was most predictive of over-all identity-status and was seen as most important to self-definition. The other area of central importance was occupation. While the ideological and sexual-interpersonal areas have been found in previous research to have central importance for white adolescents, they were found in this sample of black adolescents to show the lowest concordance with over-all identity and to be cited as having least importance in self-definition. The lowest amount of questioning and commitment occurred in these areas.     

Exploring the Construct of Perceived Burdensomeness Among Suicidal Adolescents: An Intervention Development Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide has a growing base of empirical support for use with adolescents. Of the two interpersonal constructs that...     

Hopelessness as a Predictor of Suicide Ideation in Depressed Male and Female Adolescent Youth

We examined hopelessness as a predictor of suicide ideation in depressed youth after acute medication treatment. A total of 158 depressed adolescents were administered the Children's Depression Rating Scale‐Revised (CDRS‐R) and Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C‐SSRS) as part of a larger battery at baseline and at weekly visits across 6 weeks of acute fluoxetine treatment. The Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) was administered at baseline and week 6. A negative binomial regression model via a generalized estimating equation analysis of repeated measures was used to estimate suicide ideation over the 6 weeks of acute treatment from baseline measure of hopelessness. Depression severity and gender were included as covariates in the model. The negative binomial analysis was also conducted separately for the sample of males and females (in a gender‐stratified analysis). Mean CDRS‐R total scores were 60.30 ± 8.93 at baseline and 34.65 ± 10.41 at week 6. Mean baseline and week 6 BHS scores were 9.57 ± 5.51 and 5.59 ± 5.38, respectively. Per the C‐SSRS, 43.04% and 83.54% reported having no suicide ideation at baseline and at week 6, respectively. The analyses revealed that baseline hopelessness was positively related to suicide ideation over treatment (p = .0027), independent of changes in depression severity. This significant finding persisted only for females (p = .0024). These results indicate the importance of early identification of hopelessness.