Parent-Adolescent Agreement About Adolescent's Suicidal Thoughts: A Divergence.

Abstract

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for adolescents.1–3 Much recent research has been focused on our understanding of risk and protective factors. Central to suicide prevention is recognizing those at the greatest risk and implementing targeted interventions. To help identify risk, we often rely on what parents tell us.4 How valid are these reports? That is the question that Jones et al5 address in their study “Parent-Adolescent Agreement About Adolescent’s Suicidal Thoughts” in this issue of Pediatrics . Previous studies have identified a lack of parental awareness about youth suicidal ideation6–10 or knowledge of their overall psychopathology7,11; however, small sample numbers limit the generalizability of these earlier studies. In their study, Jones et al5 help expand these findings in a cohort of 5137 adolescents from 11 to 17 years of age recruited from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort nonclinical sample. Concordance among parent and adolescent responses to questions such as, “Have you ever thought about killing yourself?” and “Have you ever thought a lot … Address correspondence to Jacqueline Grupp-Phelan, MPH, MD, Division of Emergency Medicine, University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, 550 16th St #5152, San Francisco, CA 94158. E-mail: jacqueline.grupp-phelan{at}ucsf.edu