Empathy and the Willingness of Adolescents to Involve in Suicide Prevention Actions

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate how empathy influences the willingness of Brazilian adolescents to help people at risk of suicide. This is a cross-sectional quantitative study in which 135 female (71.1%) and male (28.9%) adolescents from 14 to 19 years old participated (Mage = 17.24; SD = 1.44). The participants answered the Suicide Helpfulness Scale, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and a sociodemographic questionnaire. In the data analysis, correlation analysis and Multiple Linear Regression were used. The results of these analyzes showed that there were positive and significant associations between the dimensions of empathy and willingness to help people at risk of suicide. Specifically, empathic consideration was able to predict adolescents' willingness to provide assistance and talk to people at risk of suicide, but not their willingness to inform others. The results of the present study show that empathy can be an important variable, but not sufficient to engage adolescents in effective suicide prevention actions, emphasizing the need for other variables to be worked on with the adolescent public so that they can act as a vector of prevention.