A comparison of traditional and nontraditional college students on the College Student Reasons for Living Inventory.

Abstract

Research addressing maladaptive traits of individuals considering suicide has been conducted for many years. It was only recently that an inventory was written examining positive, life-maintaining traits of these individuals or their reasons for living. The College Student Reasons for Living Inventory (CSRLI) was written in response to questions concerning the usefulness of the original questionnaire with the college population. However, the authors of the CSRLI did not delineate between nontraditional college students and traditional students and did not examine gender as a variable of interest. The purpose of the present research project was to provide preliminary data in this area, examining the CSRLI's usefulness in a clinical setting. More specifically, the present study examined the reasons for living and not committing suicide reported by both male and female, traditional and nontraditional college students. The data indicated that neither gender nor student status affected the students' reasons for living (i.e., no significant differences were found for the main effects of gender or type of student on the total CSRLI score). Additionally, only one of the six CSRLI subscales was found to be significant for gender while none of the subscales were significant for type of student. The results were discussed and possible reasons for their occurrence given. Implications for future research were also provided.