Suicide attempts during adolescence are not strongly associated with suicide risk or depression later in life, according to research from a joint Canadian and US team in the journal Depression and Anxiety.
The researchers assessed 816 adolescents using interviews and questionnaires four times between the ages of about 17 and 30. They found that adolescent suicide attempts were associated at the time of the attempts with mental health diagnoses and treatments for psychopathology (anxiety disorder, antisocial and borderline personality disorder symptoms), risky sex, and social problems, though these impairments reflected “confounding contributions of other individual and family problems or vulnerabilites in adolescent attempters.”
“However, adolescent attempts no longer predicted most adult outcomes, notably suicide attempts and major depressive disorder,” they wrote.
(Abstract) ADOLESCENT SUICIDE ATTEMPTS AND ADULT ADJUSTMENT (Brière, Frédéric N. et al. Depression and Anxiety. First published online November 24, 2014. DOI: 10.1002/da.22296)
