This study gathers the literature on suicidal children and creates guidelines designed to
assist professionals with assessing the suicidally of a child. Analysis of the literature
reveals that there are varying ages of children used in the research, a lack of
standardization for the definition of suicide, and resistance towards a collective research
approach to understanding suicidal behaviour. The literature also identifies the important
risk factors, which are incorporated into guidelines for determining the suicidality of a
child: family discord and violence, depression, significant loss, poor and/or dysfunctional
parent/child communication and bonding, aggressive behaviour, stress, physical abuse,
parental separation/divorce, hopelessness, academic difficulties, prior suicide attempts,
and viewing death as a temporary state of being.
View online at https://www.uleth.ca/dspace/bitstream/handle/10133/218/MR03030.pdf?sequence=3