BS studies Options

[impala454]

Ok this is really getting on my nerves. Every other day some group of people X puts out a study Y that's omg crazy off the wall "news". What the hell does it take to do a "study" and have some media outlet publish it as some cold hard fact? Post idiotic bullshit studies you find in this thread.



My bitching in today's particular case comes from this:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5957958.html

Two researchers at the University of Texas at Austin surveyed 26,000 students across 70 colleges and universities. More than half said they had at least one episode of suicidal thinking. Fifteen percent reported they have seriously considered suicide and more than 5 percent had attempted suicide at least one time.

Say WHAT!@? So these two researches at TU have come to the conclusion with this survey that 5% of all college students have ATTEMPTED suicide!!?!!!!?!?!!? You have got to be fucking kidding me!! That's 1 in 20 people! And obviously the ones who actually succeeded weren't included in the survey . Does anyone actually believe this is true? That statistically you could walk into any classroom in any college and two people in there have attempted suicide?

[impala454]

Yeah I view an attempt as something that actually happened in which the result could have been death. I.e. someone buying a rope and tying a noose doesn't count IMHO. On the other hand, hanging yourself and living, whether you screwed it up or aborted, would count as an attempt. Just my take anyhow. So with the three situations given by the 'study':

1. "One episode of suicidal thinking" - (stupid, like woody said in post #2) "Man my girlfriend dumped me. I wish I were dead."
2. "Seriously considered suicide" - The person thinks of possible ways, thinks through different methods and which ones are quickest/cleanest/etc. Person possibly even purchases items which would help, or puts a gun to their head, or sets up the items.
3. "Attempted suicide" - Person actually goes through with the act (again, obviously the study only includes those who did not succeed). They slit their wrist, shot themselves, OD'd on something on purpose, etc.

But honestly, you and I viewing those definitions differently points out just how stupid the study is. It's highly doubtful that the intended definitions were presented to these 26,000 students in any way. Not to mention the fact that there's no data presented to compare with to give the results any meaning.

Lets assume for a minute that the data is all correct. So, 60% of college students have thought about suicide. What does that mean? How does that data differ from non-college students of the same age? Or of similar people before or after college? They don't have that data so the study is ultimately useless other than the "wow factor" that they were obviously going for. I would suspect that if they handed the exact same poorly designed poll to non-college students of the same age they'd get the same (or possibly even higher) results. Just a guess.