Reasons for staying alive when you are thinking of killing yourself: the reasons for living inventory.

The studies presented here describe the development of an instrument to measure a range of beliefs potentially important as reasons for not committing suicide. Sixty-five individuals generated 72 distinct reasons; these were reduced to 48 by factor analyses performed on two additional samples, and the items were arranged into the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL), which requires a rating of how important each reason would be for living if suicide was contemplated. In addition, factor analyses indicated six primary reasons for living: Survival and Coping Beliefs, Responsibility to Family, Child-Related Concerns, Fear of Suicide, Fear of Social Disapproval, and Moral Objections. The RFL was then given to two additional samples, 197 Seattle shoppers and 175 psychiatric inpatients. Both samples were divided into several suicidal (ideators and parasuicides) and nonsuicidal groups. Separate multivariate analyses of variance indicated that the RFL differentiated suicidal from nonsuicidal individuals in both samples. In the shopping-center sample, the Fear of Suicide scale further differentiated between previous ideators and previous parasuicides. In the clinical sample, the Child-Related Concerns scales differentiated between current suicide ideators and current parasuicides. In both samples, the Survival and Coping, the Responsibility to Family, and the Child-Related Concerns scales were most useful in differentiating the groups. Results were maintained when the effect of recent stress was held constant.