Drug use and suicide ideation and behavior among North Carolina public school students

We used data from 3064 respondents to the 1990 North Carolina Youth Risk Behavior Survey to examine the relationship between adolescent drug use and suicide ideation and behavior. Principal components analysis followed by varimax rotation was performed separately on the drug use and suicide items. Correlation coefficients computed between the two sets of factor scores and comparison of mean drug use factor scores revealed that drug use, particularly of crack/cocaine, was related to increased suicide ideation and behavior.