The relationship between early suicide behaviors and mental health: results from a nine-year panel study

Abstract

This paper employs community-level data to examine the relationship between suicide behaviors, measured at age eleven, and two mental health outcomes assessed nine-years later. Specifically, we assess the role and significance of suicide ideation and suicide attempts in substance dependence and depressive symptomatology. We evaluate these linkages in the context of two hypothesized mediators: exposure to social stress and T-1 depressive symptoms. Results indicate suicide ideation and attempts are significant predictors of later mental health problems. However, controlling for T-1 depression and stress exposure explains away the relationship between suicide attempts and later mental health. In contrast, suicide ideation remained a robust predictor of depression and drug dependence. The implications of these findings are discussed.