Parent-adolescent relationships and their associations with adolescent suicidal behaviours: Secondary analysis of data from 52 countries using the Global School-based Health Survey.

BACKGROUND

Despite the potential benefits of parents-adolescent relationships on suicidal behaviours among adolescents, research on these topics are importantly limited by lack of comprehensiveness, difficulties in cross-country comparisons, and limited generalisability, among others. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of various aspects of parents-adolescent relationships and suicidal behaviours by sex and region, and to investigate their associations.

METHODS

We used data from the Global School-based Health Survey (GSHS) from 52 countries in 2009-2015 for 120 858 adolescents (53.9% girls) aged 12-15 years. Using meta-analysis with random effects, we estimated the prevalence of parents-adolescent relationships (i.e. understanding problems, monitoring academic and leisure time activities, and respecting privacy) and suicidal behaviours (i.e. suicidal ideation, suicide planning, and suicide attempt). Multi-level mixed-effect logistic regressions were used to investigate their associations.

FINDINGS

Overall, boys and girls reported similar levels of parental understanding of problems (35.8% vs. 36.8%), monitoring academic activities (41.8% vs. 41.1%), and respecting privacy (69.6% vs. 69.7%), whereas girls reported higher level of parental monitoring of leisure time activities than boys (44.9% vs. 40.0%). Adolescents in the Western Pacific region reported the lowest level of parental understanding of problems and monitoring activities, while those in South-East Asia region least reported that their parents respected their privacy. The overall prevalence of any suicidal behaviour was higher in girls than boys (26.2% vs. 23.0%). Suicidal behaviour was less likely in adolescents if their parents understood their problems (odds ratio, 95% confidence intervals: 0.70, 0.68-0.73), monitored their academic (0.81, 0.78-0.84) and leisure time activities (0.73, 0.71-0.75), and respected their privacy (0.83, 0.80-0.86). There was evidence of heterogeneity in those associations by sex and regions.

INTERPRETATIONS

Although the prevalence of parents-adolescent relationships and adolescent suicidal behaviours varied particularly by sex and region, there were strong and independent associations among them.