in the classroom
Suicide and school grades
Students who don't do
well at school are far more
likely to suicide later in life,
a large study has found.
Alexandra Martiniuk interviewed
by Loren Smith
I
t’s the fatal phenomenon with silent
symptoms. Now, there’s a clue that
might help detect suicidal tendencies.
A large longitudinal Swedish study
found that those who performed poorly
at school were five times more likely to
suicide later in life, and that the worse
their grades, the higher the risk.
The researchers didn’t know why this
was the case, though they hazarded
some educated guesses. These included
that good grades predict socioeconomic
success and/or control over one’s life (and
that the converse is true), that behavioural
22 | educationreview.com.au
traits like impulsivity are associated with
both bad grades and suicide, and that bad
grades can lower self-esteem, which in
turn can increase suicidality.
Epidemiologist Alexandra Martiniuk,
associate professor of child health at
the University of Sydney and honorary
senior research fellow with the George
Institute for Global Health, is similarly
unsure as to how academic struggle and
suicide interact. Importantly, however,
she confirmed that the interaction itself is
supported by evidence from other studies
– from the US, China and New Zealand.
Education Review asked her whether
she had her own hypotheses about it.
ER: In the Swedish study, I understand
that they found a link between people
who performed badly academically in
school and suicide later in life. Can you
explain the nature of that link?
AM: There’s been a question about
whether cognitive ability – so that being
described by IQ, or marks, and in this
study that being described by GPA, or
grade point average – was related to
suicide. Previous studies hadn’t been able
to tease this out.
They did find that students who had
lower grades in their departing year of
high school – so they were 16 years of age
in Sweden, and here they would be about
the same or a bit older – were at greater
risk of attempting suicide or showing
up at a hospital with attempted suicide
or self-harm.
As an epidemiologist, I’m trained to
critically analyse the methods of medical
research studies and know what is a
strong method and therefore what it tells
you about the findings. And I think one
thing that is important in this study is
they found what we call a dose-response
relationship, which basically helps you
believe this to be true. They found that
the poorer the grades, the more likely
someone was to attempt suicide or
successfully commit suicide. And as their
grades went up, this relationship went
down. So that basically shows you that
this is probably a true relationship.
Did they determine how strong that
link was?
Yes, they divided the grades into what
they call quartiles, which is basically the
bottom fourth. So the students who had
the poorest grades in the bottom quarter
were fivefold more likely to attempt a
suicide, or to show up in a hospital for
attempting suicide.
They indicate in their limitations that
there would be individuals who may