Risk-taking behaviour of Cape Peninsula high-school students. Part II. Suicidal behaviour.

The prevalence of a wide range of risk-taking behaviour among high-school students in the Cape Peninsula, South Africa, was investigated. In this article, the results for suicidal behaviour are presented. Cluster sampling techniques produced a sample of 7,340 students from 16 schools in the three major education departments. A self-administered questionnaire was completed in a normal school period. Estimates for each education department were weighted to produce an overall estimate. During the previous 12 months, 19% of students had seriously thought about harming themselves in a way that might result in their death, 12.4% had told someone that they intended to put an end to their life, and 7.8% had actually tried to put an end to their life. There were different trends according to gender, standard and language(s) spoken at home. Of those who had made a suicide attempt during the previous 12 months, 85.7% indicated that they had seriously thought about doing so, while 57.7% had told someone that they intended putting an end to their life. There is in many cases no continuity from suicidal ideation to communicating suicidal intent to an actual attempt.