Study of College Suicides Discounts Effects of Drug Usage and Pressures

A study of suicides among college students has found that drug usage and "college pressures" play a relatively minor role in producing suicidal behavior and that students who are exceptional academically have no particular proclivity toward suicide.

The study did find that male students were more likely to commit suicide than female and that "suicidal students dated less often and had less sexual experience than nonsuicidal students."

Dr. Michael L. Peek, a staff psychologist at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, announced the results of the study at a meeting Sunday of the American Association of Suicidology.

The study was carried out in 52 colleges and universities in Los Angeles County over the past two years and was financed by the National Association for Mental Health.

According to Dr. Graham B. Blaine Jr. '40, chief of Psychiatry to the University Health Services, the student suicide rate at Harvard corresponds roughly to the results of the study and has remained at about the same level for the past 32 years-approximately two and one-half suicides per year.

Blaine said that he is currently working on a study of suicide attempts at Harvard and Radcliffe and that the results will be available soon. He said he was "very disappointed in [the Los Angeles study] because it didn't show any positive correlation's, only negative ones."

Dr. Dana L. Farnsworth, director of University Health Services, on the other hand, said he found the study "interesting and encouraging." He said yesterday that he hopes-the study will "help to inhibit rumors that college student suicides are increasing."