The Ethical Use of the Life Attitude Schedule

One of the leading causes of deaths in adolescents and young adults is suicide. The leading cause of death is accidents. Many that do not commit suicde have had at least thoughts about it. The Life Attitude Schedule was developed to assess the activities of adolescents and young adults. The tool divides both positive and negative factors in one’s life. The clinical studies identified students that were in the study that were at least. The instrument showed great promise but needed to be more culturally normed to assure diversity. Life Attitude Schedule has grown to meet the questions of ethics. However, still has room to grow.

Life Attitude Schedule

Among teenagers ages 15-19 suicide is the 3rd cause of death (NCHS,2005). According to suicide.org website it is the second leading cause of death in college students (Caruso, 2011) The other leading causes of death are accidents and homicides. Many who donot commit suicide have thoughts of suicide or have at least thought about it in the past (NCHS,2005). In both high school and college students accidental deaths were the number one cause of death. The conclusion can be drawn that the top causes of death is by participating in risky behavior.

Lewinsohn et.al, (1994) felt that adolescents participation in risk taking behaviors had become a public health concern. These behaviors could possibly be due possible negative feelings of self-worth that lead to risk-taking behaviors( Lewinsohn et.al, 1994).those who did not want to commit suicide could vicariously do so by high risk activities. The Life Attitude Schedule was developed due to the fact that many of the instruments at that time did not address the area of risk-taki...

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... responses. This showed the difference of cultures between the western culture and the eastern culture. The western culture is more “I” oriented and the eastern culture is more family and group oriented. This reflected some difference in anwers. However, the tool did not seem to lose it’s meaning in the translation.

Conclusion

Life Attitude Schedule is a useful tool in determining if an adolescent or young adult is at risk for suicide and other questionable behaviors. The use of the tool has expanded to other norms. However, there are still limitations to it being culturally diverse. The instrument is copyrighted (). It can only be directly translated and only minor changes in content are allowed. This was noted in the Chinese version. Therefore, for the tool to be used worldwide an exception to the copyright would have to be granted.