Predicting suicidal risk in a cohort of depressed children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: In children and adolescents with a depressive disorder, predicting who will also go on to exhibit suicide-related behaviors (SRBs), including suicide attempt or self-harm, is a key challenge facing clinicians.

AIMS: To investigate the relative contributions of depressive disorder severity, hopelessness, family dysfunction, and perceived social support to the risk of suicide-related behaviors.

METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of a group of 10-16-year-olds with major depressive disorders and dysthymic disorder.

RESULTS: Child-rated depressive disorder symptom severity emerged as the greatest predictor of risk. Hopelessness and family dysfunction were also significant predictors of SRBs. In combination these variables were strong predictors, accounting for 66% of the variance. This is a cross-sectional study design, rather than longitudinal, therefore risk prediction over time was not possible.

CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the child and adolescents depressive disorder symptom severity from their perspective, their level of hopelessness, as well as their family context is critical in understanding the risk of SRBs. These findings may help to provide direction for targeted interventions to address these clinical risk factors.