ARTICLES
Predictors of Adolescent Suicide Attempts: A Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study of Norwegian Adolescents

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To investigate the risk and protective factors for previous and future suicide attempts among adolescents.

Method

A representative sample of high school students (N = 9,679) in grades 7 through 12 (aged 12-20 years) were followed from 1992 to 1994. Response rate was 97% at initial testing and 80% at follow-up. Measures of psychiatric symptoms (depressed mood, eating problems, conduct problems), substance use, self-worth, pubertal timing, social network, and social integration were included.

Results

A total of 8.2% had ever attempted suicide and 2.7% reported an attempt during the 2-year study period. Logistic regression analysis showed that future attempts were predicted by previous attempt, female gender, young age, perceived early pubertal development (stronger among girls), suicidal ideation, alcohol intoxication, not living with both parents, and poor self-worth.

Conclusions

The importance that the clinician ask about previous suicidal behaviors is underscored. Early pubertal timing (particularly among girls), loss of self-worth, and alcohol intoxication may serve as risk factors for future suicide attempts.

Section snippets

Sample

Details about the sample and procedure have been described elsewhere (Wichstrøm, 1995a, Wichstrøm, 1999, Wichstrøm et al., 1996), and therefore only a brief outline is given here. Students from 67 representative schools in grades 7 through 12 (aged 12-20 years) comprised the initial sample of the Young in Norway study. The target sample consisted of 12,287 students. The response rate was 97.0%. Three schools were included at T1 (1992) for participation in the first wave of data collection only

Previous Suicide Attempts

At T1 8.2% (n = 757) reported that they had made a suicide attempt, and girls were almost twice as likely as boys to have attempted suicide. As can be seen from Table 1, adolescents not living with both parents had twice the relative risk compared with those living with both parents. Older adolescents had, as one should expect, more often made an attempt (Table 2). There was no deviation from linearity in this association (ΔLRχ2 = 0.80, not significant [NS]). For each category of psychiatric

DISCUSSION

A comprehensive set of risk and protective factors for previous and future suicide attempts was investigated in Norwegian adolescents. The sample was substantially larger and the follow-up period longer than in previous studies. The “lifetime” prevalence of suicide attempts was 8.2%, whereas 2.7% made an attempt during the 2-year study period. Future suicide attempts were multivariately predicted by previous attempt, suicidal ideation, gender (female), young age, not residing with parents,

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    This research was supported with grants from the Norwegian Research Council and the Council for Mental Health. The author thanks Berit Grøholt, Heidi Hjelmeland, and Ingeborg Rossow for their valuable comments.

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