in the classroom
That’s interesting. I don’t believe their
research looked at which variable had a
stronger relationship.
attempt suicide but do not attend a
hospital setting for that. And so they
would have missed counting those
individuals, but that doesn’t change the
findings here. That would be likely to be a
small number, and if anything would just
increase the strength of their findings in
any case.
They also looked at other risk factors,
one of which was IQ as you mentioned.
Can you name some of them and their
relationship to suicide?
There are well known variables which
impact upon somebody’s likelihood to
attempt suicide or commit suicide. And
these are things like the socioeconomic
status of the individual or the family
when they’re growing up – things like
access to food and housing – as well as
the education of the parents, and other
variables like psychiatric illness of parents
or of the individual teen or youth.
These were all measured and were
taken into account in their multivariable
analysis, and GPA or marks still had a
strong relationship in predicting who
would attempt to suicide.
Did the researchers find that marks had
a stronger relationship than those other
risk factors?
In interpreting the findings, the study
authors made several hypotheses. Do
you agree with any of these, or even have
your own?
Yes, I do agree with their hypotheses. I
thought it was a bit of a shame that we
don’t actually have a lot of knowledge
about the possibility of these hypotheses
being true or not. And some of them are
really quite common sense, but as the
authors of this paper said, there wasn’t
a lot of evidence to back some of their
hypotheses. For instance, whether having
poor grades in itself reduces someone’s
self-esteem and that is what is relate d to
their desire to attempt suicide. It seems
a common-sense hypothesis. But they
didn’t have much data on that, and I’m
hoping that this group, or some other
group, will quickly try to discern whether
that’s a large reason for this relationship.
But their other hypotheses I think are
very strong as well, that better grades
predict a life that potentially is happier,
or easier. If you have better grades
leaving high school, you may get into the
program you wish at university, or TAFE,
or go on to found a startup or whatever
it might be. This may lead to greater
happiness, a better socioeconomic
position later in life, and therefore
potentially less desire to commit suicide.
Alternatively, they had other hypotheses
where they weren’t able to discern what
was underlying the relationship. But
there are characteristics in childhood and
adolescence, like impulsivity or behaviour
challenges, which in themselves are
associated with suicidality, but they can
also be associated with poor school
grades because the researchers didn’t
have data on impulsivity or behaviour
challenges. They weren’t able to control
for those to better tease out what might
be going on. So yeah, those are the three
hypotheses that they proposed.
Another one that came to mind was
whether the 'tumultuous time' – the time
just after high school – was a particularly
risky time.
Just as you leave high school you’ve
got four or five years to figure out
what you want to do in life. I wondered
whether a lot of these attempted suicides
were actually in that first five years after
high school, and whether grades were
related to that. But the researchers said
they did a sensitivity analysis where they
removed that five-year period and then
assessed that relationship again, and the
relationship remained the same.
And this study is interesting in that if
suicide is highest in 40 and 50-year‑olds,
in particular males, this study shows that
actually having poor grades leaving high
school continues to have an impact on
suicidality even in middle-age.
So it’s a potentially useful marker for
better understanding people who might be
at risk of wanting to commit suicide.
Right, because I guess in many instances
getting poor grades in itself is not
something that can be fully controlled.
So would it be more about addressing
how that impacts the person?
Yes, that’s right. So if it has happened to
them perhaps, I imagine if somebody’s
in primary care and they’re seeing
somebody in their 30s or 40s, knowing
this relationship between suicidality and
poor grades from this paper will help us
better understand if somebody said they
had very poor grades. We can know that
is a potential marker for them being at
increased risk of suicide.
Are there any concluding remarks
you’d like to make about this study
and its impact?
I wonder and I hope that people who are
in the youth education and youth health
space [can use these findings to support]
kids who currently have poor grades.
Because we can better understand how
to support their mental wellbeing and see
whether that has any impact.
It’s possible it does, but it’s also
possible it doesn’t. It’s possible it’s more
about the relationship of grades on later
opportunities in life.
But if it's about the way an individual
views themselves, there are possible
avenues for supporting students while
they’re in high school.
If they’re struggling with their grades,
we might think about their mental health.
And then I think of it obviously in terms
of it being a marker. I mean, one could
even imagine it on a survey – asking
about somebody’s grades as a way to
better understand who might need more
support. That to me is the value of this
particular study. ■
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