Separation/Divorce and Child and Adolescent Completed Suicide

OBJECTIVE: To investigate factors that may modify the effect of separation/divorce on youth suicide. METHOD: A case-control, psychological autopsy study of 120 of 170 consecutive suicides younger than age 20 and 147 community age-, sex-, and ethnic group-matched controls living in the greater New York area was conducted. Fifty-eight suicide victims and 49 community controls came from nonintact families of origin, indicating the permanent separation/divorce of the biological parents. Potential modifiers of separation/divorce include youth's age at separation, custodial parent's remarriage, nonresidential parent's frequency of contact, parent-child relationships, and parental psychopathology. RESULTS: The relatively small impact of separation/divorce was further diminished after accounting for parental psychopathology. An interaction of separation/divorce and the father-child relationship emerged. CONCLUSION: The dramatic increase in youth suicide during the past three decades seems unlikely to be attributable to the increase in divorce rates.