Suicide: Like Parent, Like Child

A recent large study has determined that people who lost a parent to suicide as a child or adolescent are more likely to also commit suicide. The data used for the study came from Sweden’s population registry, comparing 500,000 children to young adults who lost a parent to suicide, illness or accidents to almost 4 million children to young adults with parents who are still alive.

The study found that when a child or adolescent’s parent commits suicide, that child or adolescent had a “three-fold increased risk of dying by suicide themselves”. However, with young adults, between ages 18 to 25, whose parents commit suicide did not have the elevated risk of committing suicide.

Suicide itself is typically a rare event, and according to the researchers between 7,000 to 12,000 children lose a parent to suicide each year. However, this study provides evidence in confirming the “hereditary risk of suicidal behavior”.

Holly Wilcox of the John Hopkins Children’s Center and lead author of the study reminds readers that hereditary predisposition is not the only risk factor, “it appears from our results that all factors- developmental, environmental and genetic- are important”. She also noted that steps to prevent a child or adolescent who lost a parent due to suicide from committing suicide themselves. These preventative steps include early identification and treatment of depression and educating the surviving parent to be “more sensitive to any psychiatric problems that come up”.

This blog is based on an article from CNN titled “Study: Children of Suicide More Likely to Take Own Lives” by Elizabeth Landau. To read this article, visit http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/21/suicide.children.hereditary/index.html?iref=allsearch