El intento de suicidio y la desesperanza en la adolescencia

Introduction: Suicide can be divided into three categories: completed suicide, suicide attempt and suicidal ideation. The current situation of adolescents and the conditions that negatively affect their quality of life, are evident when analyzing the statistics on the suicide attempt, which represents extreme situations and which refers to social failure as an individual life process. Objective: To identify the frequency of suicide attemps and the state of despair present in adolescents. Methodology: The instrument used was the Suicide Behavior Questionary (SBQ) by Lilian Salvo and Roberto Melipillán that investigates the frequency of suicidal ideation and suicide attemps and the scale of Beck's despair that allows us to orient the state of despair experienced by the person, including in the study 1469 adolescents, enrolled in the Educational Institutions of the city of Cuenca: National School "Benigno Malo". and the Particular Educational Unit Corazón de María". Results: The results of this research were obtained throug the SPSS program showing that 11.95% of adolescents have attempted suicide once; of these, 22.3% turn out to be adolescents of sixteen years of age. In turn, 11.26% and 2.39% manifest a moderate despair and a severe despair, respectively. Conclusiones: Although the adolescent lives with both parents, there is the presence of suicide attempts more in women and the presence of states of despair, between mild and moderate.