Suicidal ideation: The impact of family history, morbidity and interpersonal difficulty on homeless adolescents.

Suicide research typically examines one of four fundamental risk factors (e.g. family dysfunction, loss, health, and interpersonal difficulty). Yet despite the amount of research being done on suicide, no uniform consensus has been reached, by any discipline, regarding its cause. Based on theories of anomie and the cognitive stress-diathesis model, we develop and test a model of the effects between family abuse; family suicide history; substance abuse, PTSD and major depression diagnosis; survival sex; and deliberate self-harm as they predict suicide ideation among homeless and runaway adolescents. By using structural equation modeling, we test this model on a sample of 428 homeless and runaway youth in eight Midwestern cities. We find that family abuse and family suicide history indirectly effect the suicidal ideation of homeless and runaway youth. Additionally, substance abuse, PTSD, and major depression diagnosis mediate the relationship between family variables and interpersonal variables that lead to suicidal ideation.