Digital Commons Network^™

Thirteen Reasons Why, Abigail Packard

Children's Book and Media Review

Clay Jensen comes home after school and finds a package filled with cassette tapes on his front porch. When he listens to the first cassette, he hears Hannah Bake, one of his classmates that committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah explains that, after thinking about this for months, there are thirteen reasons—thirteen people—behind why she chose to kill herself. All Clay and the other twelve people have to do is listen to find out why. Clay listens throughout the evening and into the night, following a map to different locations that go along with the reasons in order to truly …

Chinese Handcuffs, Abigail Packard

Children's Book and Media Review

Dillon’s life is shattered after his older brother, Preston, commits suicide. The worse part is that Dillon witnessed the whole thing. Torn up from this horrific tragedy, Dillon tries to find solace in preparing for an ironman and working with the girls’ basketball team. Dillon meets Jennifer, a basketball star with her own set of horrific secrets. Jennifer has been sexually abused by her father and step-father for years. Try as she might, she just can’t escape. As Dillon learns more about Jennifer and her plight, he develops a plan. Together, Jennifer and Dillon work to overcome the horrors they …

Suicide Watch: How Netflix Landed On A Cultural Landmine, Shabnaj Chowdhury

Capstones

Following the premiere of the television series “13 Reasons Why” in 2017, Netflix stepped squarely on a cultural landmine, stirring controversy over its graphic depiction of teen suicide.

According to media experts, showing a teenager kill themselves on television was completely unprecedented. Mental health experts say the act has significant consequences for “at risk” audience members, or people who were already experiencing suicidal thoughts before watching the show. It is proven that entertainment, and television specifically, can strongly influence audience behaviors and thoughts.

Suicide is one of the only causes of deaths that’s on the rise in the United States, …

School-Based Suicide Prevention Program Implementation: Improving Awareness Among Parents And Faculty, Nicole Neuman

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

The health development and critical transition period of preteen to adolescence are subject to adverse experiences and prevalent risk behaviors that may negatively influence mental health. Emerging issues of depression and suicide among school-aged youths present a global epidemic. Well-designed interventions, such as school-based programs, align with national strategies and health initiatives to reduce suicide rates and facilitate treatment of concerning symptoms. Database searches for school-based, suicide, depression, prevention, and screening literature from 2012-2017 identified 12 relevant studies selected for review. Mental wellness and suicide prevention curricula must successfully improve wisdom, enhance coping skills/resilience, and foster relationships which support help-seeking …

Not After Everything, Meagan Andrus

Children's Book and Media Review

Tyler had it all: a football scholarship to Harvard, a great girlfriend, and a star football position. Then the summer before senior year, his mom commits suicide and Tyler is left with nothing. Tyler lives life just going through the motions, avoiding his increasingly abusive father and working constantly to be able to afford food and living necessities that his father refuses to pay for. When Tyler reconnects with Jordyn, an old friend from elementary school and now his coworker, he thinks at first that he will never have anything in common with her black-clad, pessimistic self. However, Jordyn seems …

The Last Leaves Falling, Lisi Merkley

Children's Book and Media Review

Sora, a teenager in Japan, wants to be a professor when he grows up, but he knows that he never will. He’ll never grow up, that is. Sora has ALS, and he knows the disease will take over his life, destroy his body, and eventually kill him. When he becomes confined to a wheelchair and his school can’t accommodate him any longer, Sora loses all his friends and doesn’t see a purpose to his life. On a whim, he joins an online chat group and makes two fast friends. Even with these two new friends, Sora struggles with the idea …

Dark Roads: Bloodline, Kenny Deem

Children's Book and Media Review

You, the reader, are John "Juan" Carlos Garcia and must decide how to best navigate the crushing weight of your mental illness and the pressure of being gay in a severely homophobic community and family. Every day, things get to seem worse and each decision you make seems to have more severe consequences. The author leaves the decisions up to you. At the end of each chapter, you turn to the specified page that corresponds to the decision you make, allowing you to step into John's shoes.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, Meagan Andrus

Children's Book and Media Review

Leonard Peacock plans to go to school, come home, shoot his ex-best friend Asher Beal, and then kill himself. But first, he has to give the few friends and important people in his life some farewell gifts. He reminisces on how he got to where he currently is and how life never gets any better. Alternating between moments of truth and clarity and moments of self-loathing and despair, Leonard's journey is full of many ups and downs. Ultimately, Leonard realizes he doesn't have it in him to kill Asher, who we later find out sexually abused Leonard for two years …

Family Tree #4: Home Is The Place, Leah Christopher

Children's Book and Media Review

In her growing-up years, Georgia struggles to make sense of the paranoia of her over-protective mother, the rift between her grandmother and great-grandmother, and the unexplained death of her great-great-grandmother. While piecing together these puzzles, Georgia also learns from loss—she watches her older brother make choices that lead to her teacher’s death in a car accident, sees her father struggle with unemployment, and experiences the horrors of September 11, 2001, hearing that her friend’s father has died in New York City. Georgia also tries to find her own way as a musician, although her mother, Francie, can’t understand why. As …

Thornhill, Karen Abbott

Children's Book and Media Review

Mary and Ella are from separate decades but share loneliness and lack of familial love. Ella has just moved in to the house next to the abandoned orphanage, Thornhill. She sees a mysterious light and strange girl on the grounds, and discovers puppets left for her by Mary. Ella begins to discover the sad story of Mary’s tortured life-and death. A talented artist herself, Ella paints and clothes the old puppets and returns them to ghostly Mary. However, friendship with Mary is an all or nothing deal. Soon a boy moving in next door to the fire ravaged orphanage sees …

The Development Of Self-Efficacy To Work With Suicidal Clients, Gregory M. Elliott, Richard W. Audsley, Lisa Runck, Ashley A. Pechek, Adriana De Raet, Angelica Valdez, Brandon J. Wilde

The Qualitative Report

Suicide is a public health crisis which counselors must be prepared to address. In this grounded theory study, the researchers advance a model to show how counselors develop self-efficacy to work with suicidal clients. Counselor educators may use this model to improve programmatic training and supervision of students.

Suicide In High School Students And The Effectiveness Of State Suicide Prevention Plans, Patricia G. Wilson

Nursing Theses and Dissertations

With suicide rates rising across all demographics and regions in the U.S., suicide prevention is one of the most challenging public health issues in recent history. Because of its prevalence, the number of federal agencies and national organizations involved with suicide prevention activities is at an all-time high (Office of the Surgeon General & National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, 2012). Instituted in 2001, the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (NSSP) was revised in 2012 and serves as a guide for states in the fight against suicide through its strategies, goals, and objectives (Office of the Surgeon General & National …

Suicide Among Emergency Responders In Minnesota: The Role Of Education, Chris Caulkins

Culminating Projects in Higher Education Administration

The primary purpose of this quantitative study is to understand suicide among emergency responders. The secondary purpose is to examine how educators can use information about suicide among emergency responders to develop and adapt curriculum to mitigate psychological trauma experienced by those in emergency medical services (EMS), the fire service, and law enforcement. I use social cognitive theory to investigate responder suicide and as a framework to understand the role of education. Official death records were cross-referenced with data possessed by responder credentialing agencies. I analyzed the records to determine the suicide rates of responders compared to the general population …

Political Beliefs, Region Of Residence, And Openness To Firearm Means Safety Measures To Prevent Suicide, Sarah E. Butterworth

Master's Theses

Firearms account for approximately half of all suicides in the US and are highly lethal, widely available, and popular; thus, firearms are an ideal candidate for targeted means safety interventions. However, despite their value as a suicide prevention tool, firearm means safety strategies are not widely utilized, possibly due to factors which impede openness to their use. This study examined the relationship between region, political beliefs, and openness to firearm means safety in a sample of 300 American firearm owners. Overall, firearm owners were more willing to engage in means safety for others than for themselves and to store firearms …

Data Mining Approach To The Detection Of Suicide In Social Media: A Case Study Of Singapore, Jane H. K. Seah, Kyong Jin Shim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this research, we focus on the social phenomenon of suicide. Specifically, we perform social sensing on digital traces obtained from Reddit. We analyze the posts and comments in that are related to depression and suicide. We perform natural language processing to better understand different aspects of human life that relate to suicide.

Mckenzie, Ellen, Caroline Wheeler, Marwa Ibrahim

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

This interview features Ellen McKenzie, an African-American lesbian woman living in Portland, Maine. Having lived in Portland for almost her entire life, Ellen can provide insight on growing up in one of the only black families in her community, the intersections between race and sexuality, co-parenting children from a spouse’s previous marriage and generally navigating the world and her career as a queer woman of color. Throughout this interview, we hear a lot about her childhood and her family’s history as civil rights activists in Maine, her relationship with her spouse and and co-parenting their children with both her spouse, …

It Is Time To Kill The Economic Theory Of Suicide, Gary N. Smith

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

A seminal paper by Hamermesh and Soss modeled suicide as a rational economic decision based on a comparison of the financial costs and benefits of staying alive. This study investigates the theoretical and empirical validity of that model.

A Longitudinal Examination Of Social Connectedness And Suicidal Thoughts And Behaviors Among Adolescents, John F. Gunn, Sara Goldstein, Constance Gager

Department of Family Science and Human Development Scholarship and Creative Works

Background: This study examines the relationship between three different types of social connectivity and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Methods: Using the Add Health dataset, three domains of social connection were explored: parental connection, school connection, and social integration. Logistic regression was used to examine whether changes over time in connectedness predicted suicidal thoughts and behavior. Results: Youth whose difference scores on social integration and parental connectedness increased were less likely to experience suicidal ideation. Increases in difference scores for perceived school connectedness protected youth who reported ideation from engaging in a suicide attempt. Conclusions: Perceptions of social connection are key …

Cry Baby Bridge, Sierra Mackelprang

USU Student Folklore Fieldwork

“Ok so in the town I grew up,…so I grew up in like Tremonton area and there’s like a lot of little towns surrounding it and there’s this town called Bear River City…and over there they have this like…really old bridge, and this bridge used to be an actual functioning bridge, that people would drive over, but it was like getting so old like, if you walk on it-… you can still walk on it, but if you look down there’s like holes through because it’s like so old, it’s like…so old they like blocked it off so you can’t …

Jackson, Carlton Luther, 1933-2014 (Mss 581), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 581. Research and manuscripts for books written by Western Kentucky University history professor Carlton Jackson. Includes some personal and professional correspondence, unpublished writing, and a partial memoir. Click on "Additional Files" below to see a listing of correspondents who provided information about the influenza pandemic of 1918. This correspondence is found in Boxes 13 and 14.

The George-Anne, Georgia Southern University

The George-Anne

• GAME DAY READY
• Campus Life
• Opinions
• News
• Puzzles
• Features
• Sports

Attitudes Towards Depression And Suicide: An Analysis Of News Coverage And Online Comments On Nigerian News Sites, Oluwamayomikun Lawal

Communication Theses

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the issue of suicide in Nigeria, based on an analysis of online news articles about suicide as well as posts in response to those news articles. The study examined how the articles framed suicide, including stereotypes about suicide, and how often comments reflected common beliefs/attitudes towards suicide. Twenty-four articles and 168 comments were analyzed. Results revealed stereotypes in language and images in the articles, which often deviated from the World Health Organization responsible suicide-reporting guidelines. The articles cited economic hardship and mental illness most often as causes of suicide, but none of the articles provided solutions …

Sex, Sexual Orientation, And Sexual Victimization As Predictors Of Suicidality Among U.S. High School Students: Results From The 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Anna Barnes

Public Health Theses

Introduction: In 2015, suicide was the second leading cause of death among youth aged 15-24 years old in the United States. In the U.S., data shows substantial gender differences in suicidality reporting. Yet, it is unknown if these gender differences in suicidality reporting remain among certain high-risk groups.

Aim: The purpose of this study is to 1) examine if there are gender differences in reported suicidal ideation and behaviors among U.S. high school students; 2) assess if any initially observed gender differences remain across sexual orientations and among those with previous history of sexual victimization among a nationally …

A Structural Equation Analysis Of The Relationships Between Ptsd, Depressive Symptoms And Suicidal Ideation : Is General Strain Theory A Viable Framework For Explaining Suicide Risk Among Correctional Staff?, Wm. Clay Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is a large body of evidence, which suggests PTSD is strongly related to increased suicide risk, however, some studies suggest the true nature of their relationship is better explained through the development of depression due to the effects of PTSD. While a majority of the studies examining this relationship focus only on general populations, a growing body research suggests that high-risk occupations such as police, firefighters and correctional staff are developing PTSD at rates as high as 8 to 10 times that of the rate of these general samples. This study, then, aims to fill a small gap in …

Qualitative Analogue Study On Student Therapist’S Reactions To Client Suicidality, Cynthia A. Beevers

Dissertations

Suicidal clients are a reality for both professional and student therapists providing counseling (Chemtob et al., 1988; Dexter-Mazza & Freeman, 2003; Goodman, 1995; Howard, 2000; Jacobson, Ting, Sanders, & Harrington, 2004; Kleespies, Penk, & Forsyth, 1993; Kleespies, Smith, & Becker, 1990; Mackelprang, Karle, & Cash, 2014; McAdams & Foster, 2000). Previous research has investigated the experiences of professional therapists working with suicidal clients, but little is known about student therapists’ experiences with suicidal clients. Only two studies were found investigating the experiences of student therapists working with suicidal clients (Kleespies et al., 1993; Kleespies et al., 1990). However, in the …

Alien Nation, Adam Hoole

Masters Theses

Can we (re)write our own subjectivity? What is lost in translation when we attempt to remake ourselves through speech acts? These questions are perhaps the most unsolvable and fundamental to inquiries into the operations of subjectivity. Nevertheless, they are questions I am to encounter and explore in this paper through a singular case study of the Manus Island Regional Processing Center. Founded in 2001, the Manus Island Processing Center served as a place for Australia to indefinitely detain refugees off-shore. The Processing Center was also a contentious site of violence and protest, of stillness and chaos, of love and despair. …

Working Memory Mediates Increased Negative Affect And Suicidal Ideation In Childhood Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Brian W. Bauer, Hanna C. Gustafsson, Joel Nigg, Sarah L. Karalunas

Student Publications

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at greater risk for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts compared to those without ADHD. Increased risk is at least partially attributable to a subset of children with ADHD and comorbid depression or disruptive behavior disorders; however, the early predictors and mechanisms driving increased risk are not well understood. Here, we investigate the contributions of two candidate mechanisms for increased suicidal ideation in children with ADHD: executive function and negative affect. 623 clinically well-characterized, community-recruited children classified by research criteria as ADHD (n = 388) or typically-developing controls (n = 253) participated. Parent-report …

Depression And The Relationship Between Sleep Disturbances, Nightmares, And Suicidal Ideation In Treatment-Seeking Canadian Armed Forces Members And Veterans, Don Richardson, Lisa King, Kate St. Cyr, Philippe Shnaider, Maya L. Roth, Felicia Ketcheson, Ken Balderson, Jon D. Elhai

MacDonald Franklin OSI Research Centre

Background: Research on the relationship between insomnia and nightmares, and suicidal ideation (SI) has produced variable findings, especially with regard to military samples. This study investigates whether depression mediated the relationship between: 1) sleep disturbances and SI, and 2) trauma-related nightmares and SI, in a sample of treatment-seeking Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel and veterans (N = 663). Method: Regression analyses were used to investigate associations between sleep disturbances or trauma-related nightmares and SI while controlling for depressive symptom severity, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity, anxiety symptom severity, and alcohol use severity. Bootstrapped resampling analyses were used to …

An Analysis Of Self-Reported Suicide Attempts And Ideation In A National Sample Of Incarcerated Sex Offenders, Kseniya Katsman

Student Theses

Suicide is the leading cause of preventable death in US jails and prisons, with rates three to nine times higher than those of the general population. Although suicide in correctional settings has been recognized as a serious problem, the research on suicide among incarcerated individuals remains limited. While the majority of suicide risk factors may be common across all offender types, sex offenders may be at a particularly elevated risk. Specifically, sex offenders have been found to report high rates of hopelessness and depressive mood, which are known predictors of suicidal behavior, and approximately 14% of incarcerated sex offenders have …

A Review Of The Mechanism Of Antagonism Of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor By Ketamine In Treatment-Resistant Depression, Yasar Sattar, John Wilson, Ali M. Khan, Mahwish Adnan, Daniel Azzopardi Larios, Shristi Shrestha, Quazi Rahman, Zeeshan Mansuri, Ali Hassan, Nirav B. Patel

School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

The biochemical processes involved in depression go beyond serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. The N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor has a major role in the neurophysiology of depression. Ketamine, one of the prototypical NMDA antagonists, works rapidly in controlling depressive symptoms, including acutely suicidal behavior, by just a single injection. Ketamine may rapidly increase the glutamate levels and lead to structural neuronal changes. Increased neuronal dendritic growth may contribute to synaptogenesis and an increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Activation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), as well as increased levels of BDNF, may increase long-term potentiation and result in an improvement …