Prevention factors for suicide ideation among abused pre/early adolescent youths
- Etiology and Surveillance Branch, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
- Dr J E Logan, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway, MS-F63, Atlanta, GA 30341-3724, USA; ffa3{at}cdc.gov
- Accepted 4 March 2009
Abstract
Suicide ideation is a problem among youths who have been previously abused. This study assesses whether three factors (ie, feeling connected to school, having parents who reward good behaviour, and feeling able to cope with peer conflict) are negatively associated with suicidal ideation for 2598 pre/early adolescents with various levels of prior abuse. For the entire youth population, those who reported all three factors were less than half as likely to have suicidal thoughts as those who did not report any of these factors (10.8% vs 30.3%, p<0.05). This pattern was similar and significant for youths who experienced peer abuse (10.2% vs 35.0%, p<0.05) and youths who experienced both early child abuse and peer abuse (21.6% vs 54.8%, p<0.05). Comprehensive programmes that improve school connectedness, parent–child relationships and coping skills to avoid violent peer conflicts might help decrease suicide ideation among youths, particularly those who have been previously abused.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: None.
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Funding: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Ethics approval: Obtained.
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Contributorship: The “Linkages” survey was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and was implemented in 2004 by contractors at ORC Macro International. I accept full responsibility for the conceptualisation, design and data analysis of this particular study.
