Perceived parental attitudes and suicidal ideation among adolescents: a correlational study

Parental Attitudes play important roles in suicidal behavior among adolescents. The present study was carried out to examine the role of perceived parental attitudes in suicidal ideaion. For this purpose Parent-Child Relation Questionnaire (PCRQ) developed by Singh (1984) and The Scale for Suicidal Ideation (SSI) developed by Beck et al. (1979) were administered on a sample of 75 boys and 75 girls (N = 150) with mean age of 16.687 (SD = .956), who were randomly selected from different schools of Aligarh. The results of the study showed that there is strong significant negative correlation between positive parental attitudes (i.e., loving, protecting, and disciplining attitudes from both mother and father) and suicidal ideation, and strong significant positive correlation between negative parental attitudes (i.e., dominating, rejecting, and punishing attitudes from both mother and father) and suicidal ideation among adolescents. Further, the result of the t-test showed that boys perceived higher mother’s rejecting attitudes and father’s dominating attitudes as compared to girls, and girls perceived father’s attitudes as more loving as compared to boys. Moreover, there was no significant difference found between boys and girls on suicidal ideation and other parental attitudes. Results of Hierarchical Regression Analysis showed that mother’s protecting attitudes was significant negative predictor of suicidal ideation for total sample, and mother’s loving attitudes as a significant negative predictor for total sample as well as for both boys and girls, separately. Additionally, father’s disciplining attitude was an important and significant negative predictor of suicidal ideation for total sample and when gender was taken into consideration it was significant negative predictor only for girls and not for boys. Mother’s punishing attitudes was significant positive predictor of suicidal ideation for total sample, and mother’s rejecting attitudes was significant positive predictor for total sample as well as only for girls. The results of the study have implications for counselors and health professionals who may include in their intervention programmes the strategies to bring changes in the parenting behavior. Community level programmes for prevention of suicidal thinking may also be organized to make the parents aware of their role in children’s negative approach towards life.