The Relationship of Weapn Carrying and Bullying to Adolescent Suicide

Background and Purpose:Suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents and rates of suicide among adolescents have increased with no clear causation.  Research indicates that adolescents who carry a weapon are more likely to have a suicide attempt. Furthermore, both in-person bullying, and cyber-bullying have been shown to influence depression and suicidality.  Adolescent suicide prevention and intervention requires knowledge of the interaction of risk factors.  While depression has been shown to be a predictor of adolescent suicide, it is important to hold this constant to get a clearer understanding of how bullying and weapon carrying interact in relation to suicidality.

Methods:Utilizing an integrated conceptual framework of the Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide and co-construction theory, this study utilized the 2015 Youth Behavior Risk Survey (YRBS). The YRBS is a nationally-representative survey conducted by the Center for Disease Control of students in 9^ththrough 12^thgrade in public and private schools in the U.S. We conducted logistic regression analyses to examine the relationship between weapon carrying at school, bullying, and suicide attempts controlling for gender, race and ethnicity, sexual identity, and depression with a final sample of 11,398 respondents.

Results: Descriptive findings indicate that 19% of students reported being bullied in school and almost 15% reported electronic bullying in the past year, while over 9% had a suicide attempt in the past year. Further, 4% carried a weapon on school property within the past 30 days. Multivariate findings indicate that those who carried a weapon in school, while controlling for gender, race, sexual orientation, depression, experiencing cyber-bullying, and experiencing in-school bullying were approximately 4 times more likely to have a suicide attempt than those who did not carry a weapon to school (OR = 3.91, p<.001).  Additionally, the effect of those who experienced cyber-bullying while controlling for gender, race, sexual orientation, and depression were two times more likely to have a suicide attempt (OR = 2.12, p<.001). Similarly, the effect of those who experienced bullying in school while controlling for gender, race, sexual orientation, and depression were almost two times more likely to have a suicide attempt (OR = 1.72, p<.001). 

Conclusions and Implications: Findings suggests that regardless of what type of bullying an adolescent experiences, they are at increased risk of a suicide attempt when they carry a weapon to school.  In fact, adolescents who have experienced cyber-bullying and carried a weapon at school are slightly more likely to have had a suicide attempt than those who have experienced bullying in school and weapon carrying at school. Social workers should consider the effect of being bullied in school and access to weapons as indicators of possible suicidality. While it is an obvious safety concern when student brings a weapon to school, social workers should be aware that this behavior may mean a student is feeling suicidal and consider their experience of feeling bullied.