A Parent's History of Suicide May Increase their Child's Risk by Nearly 5-Fold

A suicide attempt by a parent increases the odds by nearly 5-fold that their child may attempt suicide, according to a new study. Scientists have found that a parent's suicidal behavior can drastically influence their child's.

Previous studies have actually shown that suicidal behavior can run in families. That said, few studies have examined the pathways by which suicidal behavior is transmitted in families. That's why the researchers of this new study examined the children of parents with mood disorders.

The scientists followed a total of 701 children between the ages of 10 to 50 years of 334 parents with mood disorders for an average of nearly six years. About 191 of the parents had, at one point, made a suicide attempt.

So what did they find? Of the 701 children, about 6.3 percent had made a suicide attempt before participating while 4.1 percent made a suicide attempt during study follow-up. What was more interesting,, though, was the fact that there was a direct effect of a parent's suicide attempt on a suicide attempt by their child, even when they took into account a history of previous suicide attempts by the offspring.

"Impulsive aggression was an important precursor of mood disorder and could be targeted in interventions designed to prevent youth at high familial risk from making a suicide attempt," write the authors in a news release.

The findings reveal that influence that parents can have on their children. More specifically, they show how the behavior can run in families.

The findings are published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

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