Juventude, suicídio e espiritualidade: um estudo correlacional

Abstract

The general objective of this study was to verify how the presence and search for meaning in life, spiritual beliefs and attraction and repulsion towards life or death are correlated in young people aged 18 to 25 years. Its theoretical framework was Logotherapy, or Viktor Frankl's third Viennese school of psychotherapy, which warned that youth would be a period in which young people will face the human problem of questioning about the meanings in their life, a problem that can afflict men if they do so. do not find meanings in life, thus falling into an existential void. Suicide would then be a symptom of existential emptiness. Thus, the study investigated the extent to which spirituality can represent a source of meaning capable of linking young people to life. An empirical study was carried out with 156 participants. Participants answered the following instruments through Google Forms: Sociodemographic Questionnaire, Meaning of Life Questionnaire, World Health Organization (WHO) Spirituality Scale, and the Attraction to Life and Attraction to Death Scale. There was a strong positive correlation between the variable presence of meaning and the variable attraction to life, as well as a positive correlation between the variable presence of meaning verified by the Meaning of Life Questionnaire and the variable meaning in life, obtained through the instrument WHOQOL from WHO. The results were analyzed in the light of the thought of Viktor Frankl. The work concluded that as the young person presents the presence of meaning and the experience of a spirituality, he feels more attracted to life and less betrayed to death.