Suicide - PsyBlog

These Parenting Behaviours Cut Suicide Risk 7 Times

Missing out these simple parenting behaviours increases suicide risk in adolescents.

Children who are not shown by their parents that they care are significantly more likely to contemplate suicide.

The study’s authors identified three behaviours which, when lacking, were linked to suicidal thoughts in adolescence:

Telling the child they are proud of them.
Telling the child they have done a good job.
Helping them with their homework.

Adolescents who were rarely or never told by their parents they were proud of them were five times more likely to have suicidal thoughts.

They were also seven times more likely to have a suicide plan and to attempt it.

Adolescents who were never or rarely told they had done a good job or rarely helped with their homework were at similarly increased risk of suicide.

Professor Keith King, the study’s first author, said:

“Kids need to know that someone’s got their back, and unfortunately, many of them do not.

That’s a major problem.

Parents ask us all the time, ‘What can we do?’”

You can tell them you’re proud of them, that they did a good job, get involved with them, and help them with their homework.”

The researchers’ conclusions come from a 2012 US national study of parental behaviours and suicidal feelings among adolescents.

Professor Rebecca Vidourek, study co-author, said:

“A key is to ensure that children feel positively connected to their parents and family.”

The study was published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies (King et al., 2018).

The Alternative Lifestyles Linked To Suicide And Self-Harm

Being different is stressful.

Young people belonging to alternative subcultures, like metal fans, punks, goths and emos are more likely to experience suicidal thoughts.

Being into alternative youth cultures was also linked to higher levels of self-harm, the review of research including over 6,000 young people found.

It is not yet known exactly what explains this link.

Dr Peter Taylor, who led the study, says victimisation is one possibility:

“Victimisation, stigma and hate crime may explain the greater risk these individuals face.

A prime example of that is the aggression faced by Sophie Lancaster in 2007.

Sophie was tragically murdered by a group of young men purely because of her affiliation to Goth culture.”

Another possibility is that some subcultures expose their members to images or ideas about self-harm and suicide.

The study’s authors write:

“For example, there has been widespread public concern about the possibility that song lyrics may promote self-harm and suicide which has led to efforts from parents to promote the use of warning labels on certain types of music.”

However, there is currently no evidence for this.

Perhaps it is more likely that people already thinking about self-harm and suicide are more likely to get into these kind of youth subcultures:

“…self-harm may lead to alternative subculture affiliation, in that individuals choose to identify with the subculture based on their own experiences.

Young people who are vulnerable to low mood and self-harm may be attracted to groups with peers of similar difficulties who validate their experiences through music lyrics.”

The conclusions come from a review of 12 separate studies carried out over 25 years.

Dr Mairead Hughes, the study’s first author, said:

“There is not enough evidence to tell us why it is that people belonging to these subcultures are at greater risk.

Young people who have faced more adversity may be more likely to become part of a subculture, but this does not seem to fully explain the increased risk.

Stress associated with being different and belonging to a minority group may also explain some of the risk”

The study was published in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology (Hughes et al., 2018).

An Admired Personality Trait Linked To Higher Suicide Risk

This positive personality trait linked to more suicidal thoughts and suicide itself.

People who have a tendency towards perfectionism are at a much higher risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide itself, research finds.

Perfectionists find it harder than others to deal with a world that is fundamentally flawed.

Perfectionism involves being highly self-critical, constantly striving to meet the standards of others (typically parents or mentors) and being unsure about the efficacy of one’s own actions.

While a certain amount of perfectionism is adaptive and necessary, when it becomes an obsession, it can lead to a vicious cycle.

People in professions which have a strong emphasis on perfectionism — like lawyers, architects and physicians — are at a higher risk of suicide.

Mr Martin Smith, who led the research, said:

“We tend to think of perfectionism as potentially a good thing.

We’re told, ‘Aim high, reach for the stars’.

But for some people, even excellence isn’t good enough, and that’s where they run into issues. Insisting on flawlessness is simply not mentally healthy, adaptive or advisable.”

The conclusions come from 45 studies involving almost 12,000 people.

The ‘meta-analysis’, which draws together the results of lots of different studies, found that perfectionism was strongly linked to suicide.

Mr Smith continued:

“We can’t at this point say perfectionism is a cause of suicide.

But we can say the two correlate closely.

The drive to be perfect – whether it’s because of internal or external pressure to succeed without ever failing – can be an unbearable and untenable strain.”

People with high levels of perfectionism do not often seek help because it would be an admission of failure.

The study’s authors write:

“Our findings join a wider literature suggesting that, when people experience their social world as pressure-filled, judgmental, and hyper-critical, they think about and/or engage in various potential means of escape (e.g., alcohol misuse and binge eating), including suicide.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Smith et al., 2017).

The Age At Which People Are Most Suicidal

People are least happy and at the highest risk of suicide during these years.

Middle-aged people are at the highest risk of suicide, research shows.

The risk is particularly high among middle-aged women.

Middle-aged people — those in their 40s and 50s — are at twice the risk of suicide as those in their 30s or 60s.

The results tie in with surveys of happiness which find that people are at their lowest point, on average, as they approach their 50s.

Professor Andrew Oswald, the study’s first author, said:

“Suicide among the middle-aged, in the richest and safest societies ever known in human history, is a major paradox and public-policy concern.

Not only does it matter in itself — it is also a marker of a wider phenomenon of midlife distress.

What is it that is going wrong in people’s lives around the late 40s, when individuals tend to be prosperous, still healthy, and at the height of their powers?”

The study’s authors refer to Dr Elliott Jaques, the psychoanalyst who first proposed the ‘midlife crisis’:

“Jaques argued that at midlife the typical person starts to foresee death and to evaluate the meaning of their own life.

For half a century, the idea met skepticism, and sometimes derision, from scientists.

In public discussion, however, the idea gained ground…”

The reason for the increase in suicide risk in midlife is unknown, but the study’s authors speculate:

“It may be linked to thwarted life aspirations, and there must presumably be some kind of connection with health.

It cannot be blamed on young children in the home or on marital breakdown or on midlife unemployment; controlling for these, statistically, makes little difference.”

Other researchers make an economic argument.

Professor Angus Deaton, who has authored a study on a midlife dip in life satisfaction, says it could be down to too much work:

“This is the period at which wage rates typically peak and is the best time to work and earn the most, even at the expense of present well-being, so as to have increased wealth and well-being later in life.”

The study was published as IZA Discussion Paper No. 10759 (Oswald & Tohamy, 2017).

These Sexual Orientations Double Or Triple Suicide Risk (M)

The research underlines the challenges to mental health facing those with minority sexual orientations.

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The Surprising Time Of Year When Suicidal Thoughts Peak (M)

Rather than being during winter, suicides are at their height just as most people would assume overall mood is improving.

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45,000 Suicides Every Year: The Sad Cause Which is On The Rise

One in five suicides around the world is caused by this and the figure is rising.

Unemployment is linked to 45,000 suicides around the world each year, a new study finds.

This represents around one in five of the total number of global suicides.

The research, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, gathered data from 63 countries between 2000 and 2011 (Nordt et al., 2015).

They found that the risk of suicide due to unemployment had risen between 20 and 30 per cent across all regions of the world.

Also, since the period included the start of the recession in 2008, they were able to look at its effect.

Dr. Carlos Nordt, who led the study, said:

“After the crisis year in 2008, the number of suicides increased short-term by 5,000 cases.

Therefore, suicides associated with unemployment totaled a nine-fold higher number of deaths than excess suicides attributed to the most recent economic crisis.”

It’s not just the unemployment itself that is linked to suicide, it’s the period leading up to it when employees can face an uncertain and stressful few months, or even longer.

Suicide and unemployment

In some countries the impact of unemployment is worse, as the team explains:

“…our data suggest that not all job losses necessarily have an equal impact, as the effect on suicide risk appears to be stronger in countries where being out of work is uncommon.

It is possible that an unexpected increase in the unemployment rate may trigger greater fears and insecurity than in countries with higher pre-crisis unemployment levels.”

Dr Wolfram Kawohl, one of the study’s authors, said:

“The development on the job market was obviously anticipated and the uncertainty regarding the development of the economic situation already seems to have negative consequences.

Training for specialists such as those in the human resources department is needed to recognize this increased suicide risk in people both in and out of work more effectively and to help deal with the problem.”

The Countries Where Suicide Risk Is Much Higher (M)

Almost one in ten people worldwide has seriously considered suicide.

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This Suicide Warning Sign Is A Myth

Suicidal thoughts can fluctuate rapidly.

Most people who die by suicide do not tell doctors they have suicidal thoughts in the weeks before their death, research finds.

The finding upends the common belief that asking about suicidal thoughts is a useful way of assessing the risk of suicide.

The study found that 60 percent of people under psychiatric care who later took their own lives told a psychiatrist they did not have suicidal thoughts.

Suicidal people may hide their thoughts out of shame or perhaps the fear of being stopped.

Suicide is a relatively rare event, though, said Professor Matthew Large, study co-author:

“We know that suicide ideas are pretty common and that suicide is actually a rare event, even among people with severe mental illness.

But what we didn’t know was how frequently people who go on to suicide have denied having suicidal thoughts when asked directly.”

The new research is a meta-analysis, a way of bringing together the results of many other studies — in this case 70.

The results showed that just 1.7 percent of people with suicidal ideas went on to take their own lives.

Among people who were not under psychiatric care, 80 percent of people who ended their own life denied having suicidal thoughts to a physician.

Dr Catherine McHugh, the study’s first author, said:

“Doctors sometimes rely on what is known as suicidal ideation—being preoccupied with thoughts and planning suicide—as a crucial test for short-term suicide risk, and it has been argued it could form part of a screening test for suicide.

Our results show that this is not in the best interests of patients.”

Dr McHugh says suicidal thoughts can fluctuate rapidly:

“Some people will try to hide their suicidal feelings from their doctor, either out of shame or because they don’t want to be stopped.

We also know that suicidal feelings can fluctuate rapidly, and people may suicide very impulsively after only a short period of suicidal thoughts.”

Instead of relying on suicidal ideation, clinicians should focus on distress, said Professor Large:

“It means trying to better understand the patient’s distress and not making patients wait weeks for treatment or denying treatment in the absence of suicidal thoughts.”

The study was published in the journal BJPsych Open (McHugh et al., 2019).