Adopted Adolescents More Likely to Attempt Suicide, According to New Cincinnati Children's Study
CINCINNATI -- Adolescents who live with adoptive parents are more likely to attempt suicide than adolescents who live with biological parents, according to a Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati study published in the August edition of Pediatrics.
The findings of the study may help healthcare providers identify adolescents who are at risk and intervene before suicide attempts occur, according to Gail Slap, M.D., director of Adolescent Medicine at Cincinnati Children's and the study's lead author.
Dr. Slap is quick to emphasize, however, that "the great majority of adopted youth do not attempt suicide. Moreover, adopted and non-adopted youth in this study did not differ in other aspects of emotional and behavioral health."
The study is based on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), which surveyed more than 90,000 United States adolescents in school and more than 17,000 at home. The Cincinnati Children's study included only the 6,577 adolescents from the home survey who were in two-parent, married households. Of these, 3 percent lived with adoptive parents and 97 percent with biological parents.
Although more than twice as many adopted adolescents reported suicide attempts within the year preceding the survey as non-adopted adolescents, the proportions in both groups were small, at 7.6 percent of adopted adolescents and 3.1 percent of non-adopted adolescents. Furthermore, adopted and non-adopted youth did not differ on other factors that were associated with suicide attempts, such as depression, low self-esteem, delinquency and aggression, according to Dr. Slap.
"Strong family connectedness as perceived by the adolescent, regardless of adoptive or biological status, decreased the likelihood of suicide attempt and therefore represents an important protective factor for all adolescents," says Dr. Slap.
Contact Information
Jim Feuer, (
jfeuer@chmcc.org), 513-636-4656
