SAMPAIO, Daniel et al. Representações sociais do suicídio em estudantes do ensino secundário . []. , 18, 2, pp.139-155. ISSN 0870-8231.

Given the importance of suicidal behavior in adolescents are concerned, the analysis of the meanings associated with suicide in the specific area of their social construction becomes a pertinent task. Various research projects underline the fact that the way people construct explanations for events is not merely based on beliefs and experiences of their origin groups, it also shapes behavior. In this first article, integrated in a wider research on adolescent social representations of suicide, the type of explanations that young people find for this phenomenon are analyzed, taking into account gender, age group, level of schooling, region, and suicide ideation. 822 adolescents have participated in this project, ages ranging from 15 to 23 years old, enrolled in the10th, 11th, and 12th grades, belonging to Évora, Guimarães, Lisboa and Santarém public schools. The results suggest that we aren't facing a hegemonic representation of suicide explanations. Such representation varies according to age, gender and level of schooling, as well as according to the region where these young people study, and also to the occurrence or lack of occurrence of suicide ideas. Taking into account the need for an adequate response to such diversity, these results take on particular relevance when preventing strategies are being planned.

: suicide; Social Representations; Adolescents.

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