The Contribution of School to the Feeling of Acceptance and the Risk of Suicide Attempts among Austrian Gay and Bisexual Males

Abstract

School-related factors contributing to the suicidality of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are understudied, especially in German-speaking Europe. Among our Web-based sample of 468 Austrian gay or bisexual adults, 18% attempted suicide and about one half of them reported that hard times at school related to one's homosexuality partly or mainly caused the attempt. Such suicide attempts were associated with a lack of acceptance at school and harassment experiences. In contrast to suicide attempts, acceptance at school was significantly associated with protective factors such as teachers intervening against homophobia or presence of openly homosexual teachers or peers. These findings may be important for consideration in school-based suicide prevention programs.

KEYWORDS:

• sexual orientation
• homosexuality
• gay
• bisexual
• adolescents
• school
• suicide
• suicide attempt
• suicidality

The authors thank Pierre Tremblay for valuable discussions and providing helpful literature and Jen Wang, Cayce McCain, and Judith Hansen for their assistance in English. Thanks also to Georg Stiller for programming the electronic questionnaire, the providers of gayromeo.com for placing a link to the questionnaire on their Web site, and the men who participated in the study.