Attempted suicide among adolescents: A stepwise discriminant analysis

A sample of 40 adolescents (mean age = 14.8 years), some of whom had attempted suicide (n = 20) and some who had not (n = 20), were compared on a number of life history and psychological variables (affective and cognitive). Stepwise discriminant analyses produced one discriminant function (Wilk's Lambda = 0.23; p < .001) that differentiated between the groups. This single discriminant function accounted for 77% of the variance in the data. These results are interpreted within the context of the early loss hypothesis.