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Black college students who turn to their faith think less about suicide
Self-blame was found to be associated with experiencing suicidal thoughts.
By Janelle R. Goodwill, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, University of Chicago
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Black college students who resorted to self-blame when faced with stress were also more likely to experience suicidal thoughts within the past year. This is in comparison to those who were less likely to resort to self-blame.
But those who turned to their faith to cope with stress were less likely to think about taking their own lives.
These are just two of the key findings from a study on Black students’ mental health that I published in 2022. I initially conducted this work for my dissertation, analyzing previously collected surveys of 400 Black college students in the U.S. All participants were 18 to 35 years old. The overarching goal of this study was to examine the relationship between depression and suicidal ideation — or thoughts of suicide — to better understand how to disrupt the relationship between the two.
