Suchergebnisse

Background: Suicide among adolescents is an important public health problem. One risk factor for youth suicidal behavior that has been underexplored is insecure attachment. Aims: To investigate the association between attachment avoidance/anxiety and suicidal behavior in an adolescent sample. Method: This study examined attachment insecurity in 40 adolescents who had attempted suicide and 40 never-suicidal demographically matched youths. Adolescents completed self-report measures of attachment style, family alliance, and depressive symptoms. Results: Suicide attempters reported significantly higher attachment avoidance and anxiety. Attachment avoidance, but not anxiety, predicted suicide attempt status in a conditional logistic regression analysis that controlled for depressive symptoms and family alliance. Conclusion: Future research should determine the relative utility of attachment insecurity in prospectively predicting suicide attempts and investigate potential mediators and moderators of this association. Implications for clinicians working with suicidal youth with insecure attachment styles are discussed.

This study used data from 75 adolescent mothers to examine relations among adolescent mothers' attachment avoidance and anxiety, their ability to trust their child's father, and their perceptions of the quality of their coparenting relationship with their child's father. Results suggest that mothers with lower avoidance had more trust for their child's father and also had coparenting relationships characterized by less conflict and a stronger parenting alliance. Moreover, trust mediated the associations between mother's avoidance and coparenting quality. In contrast, mothers' attachment anxiety was not associated with trust for their child's father or their perceptions of coparenting relationship quality. This study provides evidence that adolescent mothers' relationship histories may play an important role in the quality of the coparenting relationship they have with their child's father.

Abstract. Background: Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth in the United States. Multiple factors have been shown to increase risk for suicidal behavior, including depressed mood. Aims: The purpose of this study was to examine individual characteristics and precipitating circumstances of suicide in youth decedents with and without depressed mood at the time of death. Method: Data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) were analyzed for 17 US states from 2003 to 2012. Participants included suicide decedents aged 10–19 years ( N = 4,053). Analyses compared youth suicide decedents with depressed mood at time of death with those without depressed mood using logistic regression. Sex-specific differences in youth with depressed mood were also explored. Results: Youth suicide decedents with depressed mood were more likely than those without depressed mood to exhibit clinical characteristics and precipitating circumstances associated with suicide. Comparison of males and females with depressed mood found unique sex-specific differences. Limitations: Data were limited to 17 states, analyses did not include a control group, and data were collected through postmortem reporting. Conclusion: Findings support a significant association between depressed mood and factors associated with suicidal behavior in youth and offer potential areas to focus prevention strategies.