Abstract
This study investigates the psychological effects of participation in Death Education (DeEd) by middle school children in two towns in northeast Italy in which suicides occur to a greater extent than in the rest of the region. The aims of the project “Beyond the Wall” were inherent to the prevention of suicide, address existential issues and enhance the meaning of life through positive intentions for the future and reflection on mortality. It involved eight classes (150 students in four classes in the experimental group; 81 in four classes in the control group) engaging with films, workgroup activities, photovoice and psychodrama. The constructs of resilience, emotional competency and psychological well-being were monitored with the Resilience Scale for Adolescents, the Hopelessness Scale for Children, the Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children and the Stirling Children’s Well-being Scale. The DeEd intervention was found to be significantly related to some of the variables investigated, improving the students’ ability to recognise emotions and communicate them verbally while maintaining stable initial characteristics, such as psychological well-being and positive expectations for the future.
Highlights
In the US, suicide is the second leading cause of death among pubescent children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 [1]
The experimental group started with higher levels than the control group on alexithymia, i.e., the inability to understand one’s emotions (Table 1)
During the pre-test, the two groups had significantly different scores on two components of resilience—Social Resources (SR) (t = −2.62, df = 148, p = 0.010) and Family Cohesion (FC) (t = −1.99, df = 148, p = 0.048)—and differences that were close to statistical significance on another component of resilience, Social Competence (SC) (t = −1.91, df = 148, p = 0.058)
Summary
In the US, suicide is the second leading cause of death among pubescent children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 [1]. In Italy, suicide is the third most frequent cause of death between the ages of 15 and 24, after road accidents and cancer. Significant differences were observed between the three Italian macro-regions: 2.63 ± 0.60 in the north, 2.07 ± 0.35 in the centre and 2.19 ± 0.40 in the south. This can be explained by the protective role of the networks of family and friends that are strong in southern Italy. It is difficult to establish a cause for these traumatic events; in the 15–19 age group, there is a higher frequency of suicides in schools, often going together with problems such as self-esteem and relationships with friends and family (33%), depression (13.8%) and family problems (5.6%) [3]
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