Suicidal ideation during adolescence: The roles of aggregate genetic liability for suicide attempts and negative life events in the past year.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Lannoy, Séverine Mars, Becky Heron, Jon Edwards, Alexis C.
Abstract	BackgroundSuicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) constitute a central public health concern in adolescence. Previous studies emphasized the difficulty to cope with negative life events during adolescence as a risk factor for STB. Familial and genetic liability has also been documented to explain STB risk. Nevertheless, less is known about aggregate genetic liability and its possible interaction with negative life events. Moreover, information is needed to understand how these factors differently affect STB in boys and girls.MethodsWe evaluated suicidal ideation at 17 years old and examined the role of aggregate genetic liability, negative life events, and their interaction in a sample of 2,571 adolescents. Aggregate genetic liability was measured using a polygenic score (PGS) for suicide attempts. Negative life events were assessed in the past year and included parental divorce and hospitalizations, death of friends and relatives, bullying, failure‐related events, and involvement with drugs. We conducted univariable and multivariable general linear models stratified by sex and evaluated the interactions between PGS and negative life events in subsequent models.ResultsAnalyses showed that suicidal ideation in boys is associated with failure to achieve something important (estimate = 0.198), bullying (estimate = 0.285), drug use (estimate = 0.325), and parental death (estimate = 0.923). In girls, both aggregate genetic liability (estimate = 0.041) and negative life events (failure at school [estimate = 0.120], failure to achieve something important [estimate = 0.279], drug use [estimate = 0.395], and bullying [estimate = 0.472]) were associated with suicidal ideation. Interaction analyses suggested that PGS interacted with drug use and failures at school, though this would need additional support.ConclusionsThese findings represent significant contributions to the fundamental understanding of STB in adolescence, suggesting to monitor the impact of negative life events during adolescence to better prevent suicide risk. Genetic liability is also of importance in girls and might influence the way they respond to environmental threats.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC9912194&blobtype=pdf
Page Count	1173
ISSN	00219630
Journal	Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines [J Child Psychol Psychiatry]
Volume Number	63
DOI	10.1111/jcpp.13653
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9912194
Issue Number	10
PubMed reference number	35766310
e-ISSN	14697610
Language	English
Publisher	John Wiley and Sons Inc.
Publisher Date	2022-06-29
Publisher Place	Hoboken
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
Subject Keyword	ALSPAC suicidality genes polygenic environment
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Developmental and Educational Psychology Psychiatry and Mental Health Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health