Developmental Assets and Their Relationship to Suicidal Behavior in Mexican Young Adults

Omar Baza-Arce, Angélica Juárez-Loya () and Catalina González-Forteza
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Omar Baza-Arce: Clinical and Health Psychology Department, Psychology Faculty, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City 04510, Mexico
Angélica Juárez-Loya: Clinical and Health Psychology Department, Psychology Faculty, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City 04510, Mexico
Catalina González-Forteza: Epidemiology and Psychosocial Research Department, Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City 14370, Mexico

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 8, 1-11

Abstract: Suicide in young people is a public health problem. Typically, protective factors for suicide are not studied; research tends to focus on measuring risk factors. However, knowing the risk factors does not mean that we also know the opposing factors that influence a group’s health problems. For this reason, we examined the relationship between developmental assets in Mexican youth aged 18 to 25 years who are not at risk for suicide, exhibit self-injurious behavior, and whose last suicide attempt had low or high lethality. A cross-sectional study of 478 young people (73% female and 27% male) from Mexico City was conducted using an online survey and correlations were tested with dummy variables (groups) and multinomial logistic regression. The no-risk group showed associations with all developmental assets, the self-injurious group had an association with the house rules variable, the low lethality group was correlated with twelve assets and the high lethality group with four assets. Four internal developmental strengths were significant in the regression model: avoidance of risk behaviors, school expectations, resistance to pressure, and expression of anger. These results suggest that PYD is a useful framework for examining suicide risk and promotes skill development in young college students.

Keywords: suicidal behavior; positive youth development (PYD) framework; developmental assets; young students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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