Losing parent in childhood may increase suicide risk: study

Losing a parent is one of the most stressful and potentially harmful life events in childhood, and a European study found it may raise a person's long-term risk of suicide.

Mai-Britt Guldin of the Aarhus University in Denmark and colleagues used nationwide register data from 1968 to 2008 in Denmark, Sweden and Finland to identify 189,094 children who had a parent die before the child turned 18.

For comparison, the researchers matched those bereaved children with nearly 2 million children who did not have a parent die to examine the long-term risk of suicide after parental death.

Both groups were followed for up to 40 years, according to the study published in the U.S. journal JAMA Psychiatry.

They found 265 individuals, or 0.14 percent of the bereaved group, died from suicide during follow-up, compared to 0.07 percent in the comparison group.

Boys seemed more affected than girls, the study said. During 25 years of follow-up, the absolute risk of suicide was four in 1,000 persons for boys who experienced parental death in childhood and two in 1,000 persons for girls.

The researchers noted their register-based study had no information on important risk factors including genetic factors, social network and family lifestyle factors.

"Our study points to the early mitigation of distress to reduce the risk of suicidal behavior among children who had a parent who died during childhood," they concluded. Enditem