Purpose: The purpose of the current study is to
specify the reasons that hold people clinging to life; to investigate their
suicide probability, and to describe the relationship of these variables with
other variables such as hopelessness and loneliness, taking age, education and
other socioeconomic variables into consideration.
Method: The subjects were 683, randomly chosen
adolescents and adults between the ages of 15-65, residing in Ankara and İzmir.
The assessment instruments were Reasons for Living Inventory, Suicide
Probability Scale, UCLA Loneliness Scale, and Beck Hopelessness Scale. The data
were analyzed using the SPSS for Windows 10.00.
Results: The analyses revealed that the group aged
between 15-25 years reported fewer reasons for living, higher suicide
probability, more hopelessness and loneliness, compared to older ages. Moreover,
women reported more reasons for living, along with less loneliness and
hopelessness. The regression analyses pointed out that age, education level,
hopelessness, loneliness and reasons for living are predictive variables for
suicide probability.
Conclusion: As it was previously reported the
current study also revealed that age is an important variable to be taken into
consideration when suicide probability is being determined. In addition, was
also found to be an important variable, at least for this Country. In parallel
with the results of the studies in the relevant literature, reasons for living,
hopelessness, and loneliness were found to be significant predictors of suicide
probability.