Youth Exposure to Suicide Attempts: Relative Impact on Personal Trauma Symptoms
Date
2019
Journal Title
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Publisher
American journal of preventive medicine
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to report the prevalence of youth lifetime exposure to
suicide attempts by people close to them, and its association with personal nonvictimization adversities, suicidal ideation, thoughts of self-harm, and trauma symptoms.
Methods: Data were collected as part of the National Surveys of Children’s Exposure to Violence,
comprising three cross-sectional studies conducted in 2008, 2011, and 2014 in the U.S. assessing
the experiences of children ages 1 month to 17 years. The current analyses utilized the self-report
data from youth, ages 10−17 years (n=6,366), and was analyzed in 2017.
Results: Twelve percent (n=779) of youth said someone close to them had tried to kill themselves.
Exposure varied by age: 4% of youth aged 10−12 years, 13% of youth aged 13−15 years, and 21%
of youth aged 16−17 years reported such exposure. Exposure to suicide attempts also varied by sex
with 8% of males and 16% of females reporting this experience. After adjusting for the total number
of other types of adversity experienced, the association between exposure to suicide attempts and
trauma symptoms (b=0.5, 95% CI=0.3, 0.7, p≤0.001); suicidal ideation (OR=2.4, 95% CI=1.4, 4.1,
p≤0.001); and thoughts of self-harm (OR=3.1, 95% CI=1.9, 5.1, p≤0.001) remained significant,
although attenuated.
Conclusions: Study findings that youth exposure to suicidal behavior is associated with negative
emotional distress, and that it often co-occurs with other adversities and social risk factors, highlight the need to better understand the causal pathways among these risk factors to improve youth
suicide prevention and response interventions.
Description
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Article
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Keywords
trauma symptoms, suicide attempt, effects, exposure
Citation
Mitchell, K. J., Turner, H. A., & Jones, L. M. (2019). Youth exposure to suicide attempts: relative impact on personal trauma symptoms. American journal of preventive medicine, 56(1), 109-115.