Ideación suicida en población escolarizada infantil: factores psicológicos asociados

Introduction Nowadays, suicide is a public health problem and a social phenomenon that affects human development. From 1995 to 2002, the state of Sonora showed a 3.8% annual average increase in the occurrence of suicide in productive age population, occupying the national third place with regard to this problem’s growth. During the 1970’s suicide in groups of infants and school children between 5 and 14 years old started to be noticed in the country. At present time, self-inflicted injuries are eighth cause of death for this age group. Suicidal behavior is a process comprised by several stages: passive suicidal ideation, active contemplation of suicide itself, planning and preparation, suicide attempt execution, and completed suicide. Since these stages may or not be sequential, it is important to study the steps preceding suicides, such as the ideation and the attempt, in order to know and treat this problem. The suicidal ideation is a very important stage as predictive factor to approach the completed suicide and refers to the thoughts regarding one’s own death, which may or not be verbalized. There is little research about this subject matter particularly in regards to population under 14; hence, in this study, psychological factors of a sample comprised by boys and girls between 10 and 12 from public and private schools from the State of Sonora will be analyzed and compared to identify those children associated with suicidal ideation and advance in the understanding of this complex phenomenon.