The Relationship Between Seriously Considering, Planning, and Attempting Suicide in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey

The assumed ordinal relationship between seriously considering, planning, & attempting suicide in the 1990 Youth Risk Behavior Survey was examined by constructing a trajectory that identified all possible response patterns among the 4 questions measuring suicidal activity. Significant differences between means of dependent variables at each level of the normative trajectory supported the hypothesis that frequency of risk behaviours increases monotonically with successive suicidal thought & behaviour. (20 refs)