Parental Expectations and Patterns of Change in Suicidal Ideation across Adolescence

• In Event: Poster Session 14
  In Poster Session: PS 14 Topic - Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds, increasing from
childhood into adolescence (Lyness, 2015). There is considerable heterogeneity in patterns of change in suicide ideation across adolescence, with some work suggesting three distinct patterns of change in suicide ideation: continuous higher risk, continuous lower risk, and risk limited to adolescence (i.e., an inverted U shape; Erausquin et al., 2019). Understanding how contextual variables contribute to change is urgently needed to inform prevention efforts. A growing body of research has documented links between parenting practices and suicidal behavior (e.g., style, warmth, communication; Donath et al., 2014), yet less work has examined how parenting contributes to changes in suicide ideation. Perceptions of parental expectations and encouragement may contribute differential to changes in suicide ideation in adolescence. As adolescents develop, their emotional perception of the world tends to be amplified (Yang et al., 2019) and combined with lower perceptions of supportive ecologies (e.g., Eccles et al., 1993), may contribute to suicide ideation. We extend current work on suicide by examining how adolescents’ perceptions of parental expectations predicting distinct classes of developmental change in suicide ideation across adolescence.
Data come from the national Longitudinal Study of American Youth study. We utilized Cohort Two (N = 3,701, 52% male), self-reported race/ethnicity was White (69.5%), Black (11.2%), Hispanic (9.1%), Asian (3.6%), or Other (1.5%). We used growth mixture model to identify different classes of Suicide ideation assessed from 7th to 12th grade. Parental expectations and encouragement from 7th grade were included predictors using the three-step method (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2014) in Mplus.
A three-class model provided the best fit (see Table 1). Class 1 (5% of youth) was labeled Decreasing Risk, and were high on suicidal thoughts in 7th grade but declined across adolescence; Class 2 (8%), Increasing Risk increased in suicidal thoughts throughout adolescence, and Class 3 (86%), Low Risk, were low or never experienced suicidal thoughts (see Figure 1). Parental encouragement significantly increased the likelihood of being in the Decreasing Risk class compared to the Low Risk class (OR = 0.39, p = .01) whereas parental expectations increased the likelihood of being in Increasing Risk class compared to the Low Risk class (OR = 0.27, p = .04). Neither parenting constructs distinguished between the Increasing Risk and Decreasing Risk classes.
Our findings align with previous research (Erausquin et al., 2019), suggesting there is heterogeneity in patterns of change in suicidal thoughts. Results extend previous work by examining the role of parental encouragement as a protective factor whereas parental expectations may act as a risk factor for youth who are already experiencing suicidal thoughts. Results also align with stage-environment fit theory suggesting a mismatch between the developmental supports and needs during early adolescence. Future work may benefit from exploring factors that distinguish between decreasing and increasing groups and could provide insight for interventions to help these at-risk youth. Overall, our findings advance research on adolescent suicidality and provide insight into factors contributing to suicide ideation.

Authors

• Ryan William Anstead, Utah Valley University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer C. Shubert, Utah Valley University
  Non-Presenting Author