Parent-Child Relationships as Systems of Support or Risk for Adolescent Suicidality

This study examined a process model of predicting adolescent suicidality. Adolescent emotional distress was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between parent behaviours & subsequent adolescent suicidality. The parental behaviours studied included parental warmth & parental hostility. A sample of 451 families from rural Iowa participated in this longitudinal study, that included both observation & self-report data. Models were tested with structural equation modelling. Adolescent emotional distress was found to be a mediating variable between paternal warmth & adolescent suicidality. Results indicated that maternal warmth predicted adolescents suicidality but not emotional distress. Parental hostility did not predict either latent variable. (64 refs.)