What is the risk of suicide attributable to stress for those in the highest quintile compared with those in the lowest quintile? Interpret this finding

Question

1.    Assuming that the Sangamon County School District XX was worried about a series of suicides among students in 7^th grades through high school. Over the past decade, at least 10 students had committed suicide during the school year in this School District. As an epidemiologist, you have been asked to conduct a cohort study to examine risk factors that might be associated with suicides among the population mentioned above. Thus, you have designed a robust longitudinal study that required each student in grades 4 and above to complete a series of assessment regarding stress level, social involvement, and relationship, affects, and so on; twice during the school year. By the end of the third year, you have conducted six assessments and 11 students were either confirmed or suspected of committing suicide. Preliminary examination of the data showed that parental pressure placed on children to excel at academic studies was to blame for these outcomes. Therefore, you separated the data into high and low stress responses about parental pressure in order to evaluate your hypothesis. Use the table below to answer the accompany questions:

	Number of confirmed and suspected suicides	Person-Months of Observation
High Stress (Upper Quintile)	9	34,400
Low Stress (Lower Quintile)	2	58,980

What is the risk of suicide attributable to stress for those in the highest quintile compared with those in the lowest quintile? Interpret this finding

Answer 1

It is not possible to quantify from these data. In order to get the Attributable Risk, you would need to know the numbers of population that did not commit suicide. Your question, however, shows only hours observed, which is interesting but useless for this question. So, Column B, what is now labeled "Observed" should be "Not Suicide" followed by a count of High Stress, and Low Stress "survivors".