Suicidal Attempts and Ideations Among Adolescents and Young Adults: the Contribution of the Father’s and Mother’s Care and of Parental Separation

Parental care was analyed separately with the Parental Bonding Instrument for both father & mother or their surrogate to assess its association with suicidal behaviour. The study was conducted with 2 French-speaking samples from Montreal; the first included 2,327 high school students & the second 701 young adults reached by phone. Results showed poor care by the father to be highly associated with suicidal behaviour in the high school group. Poor care by the mother & parental divorce showed a lower association. In the second sample, only poor care by the father was significantly associated with suicidal behaviour. It is concluded that more attention should be focused on the father & that parental divorce may have a short-term effect but is not a lasting influence when poor care is absent. (32 refs.)