About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 6. Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

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Suicidal ideation (SI) is critical to study in adolescents due their developmental vulnerability to impulsivity and risk-taking (Casey et al., 2008), and the high prevalence of suicide deaths in this population (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). Past research has generally found that lower parental support, lower parental structuring (e.g., setting rules, monitoring), and higher negative parenting are related to lower adolescent SI (e.g., Kingsbury et al, 2020; Su et al, 2022). However, there are relatively few studies that use observational measures of parenting and use longitudinal designs. In addition, a few studies suggest that there may be moderators in the association between parenting and adolescent SI.

Using a sample of 238 11-14 year old adolescents (49% female, 64% white), the current study examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between observed parental support (e.g., validation, praise), parental structure (e.g., setting rules, monitoring), and negative parenting (e.g., criticism, aggression) in a Parent-Adolescent Interaction Task (PAIT) and adolescent SI (yes/no SI), self-reported by adolescents at baseline and 1-year follow-up. We also examined adolescent school connectedness and sex as moderators of the association between parenting and SI.

Logistic regressions were conducted. Parenting was not associated with SI at baseline. Negative parenting (but not support or structure) was associated with greater odds of adolescent SI at 1-year follow-up (OR = 2.96, 95% CI [1.23, 7.87]), covarying SI at baseline.

School connectedness significantly moderated the relationship between parental support and adolescent SI at 1-year follow up (B = -0.09, p = .049). Lower support was related to higher SI only for adolescents with high school connectedness. Adolescent sex was not a significant moderator between parenting and adolescent SI.

Findings indicate that negative parenting is associated with higher risk of adolescent SI longitudinally, which aligns with previous research on parenting and adolescent SI and extends them to an observational (rather than self-report) context. Our findings also indicate that school connectedness may play a complex role in the development of SI. Lower parental support was associated with higher risk of SI for adolescents who felt highly connected to school. It may be that adolescents who are highly connected to school are youth that have high needs for and sensitivity to validation, and get that from school. And those youth may be especially sensitive when there is a lack of validation from parents, leading to risk for SI.

Our findings suggest that strategies to reduce negative parenting may be an important prevention target for family-oriented interventions. They also suggest that despite research supporting school connectedness as a protective factor for youth, assessing support in the parenting environment may be critical in identifying treatment needs for adolescents who are highly connected to school.

Author information

Author	Role
Giselle MacDonald, George Mason University, Department of Psychology	Presenting author
Tara Chaplin, George Mason University, Department of Psychology	Non-presenting author

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