Lannoy Séverine, Bountress Kaitlin, Stephenson Mallory, Edwards Alexis C
Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, USA.
J Affect Disord. 2025 Aug 15;383:187-194. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.04.136. Epub 2025 Apr 26.
Adverse childhood experiences are consistently implicated in risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB). However, the nature of those experiences and their specific associations with STB remain unclear. The diathesis-stress model also suggests that the influence of adverse experiences depends on one's genetic liability, though results using measures of aggregate genetic risk need additional empirical support. This study aimed to improve our understanding of the roles of childhood adversity and genetic liability in risk for STB. Participants were from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. First, we conducted a random split-half exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in the full sample (N = 11,606) to investigate the latent structure of childhood adversity. Second, we ran logistic regressions to evaluate how childhood adversity, aggregate genetic liability for STB (operationalized with polygenic scores), and their interaction were related to suicide ideation and attempt in two ancestry groups (European [EA, N = 3424] and African [AA, N = 1172]). Findings indicate that the structure of childhood adversity was best represented by a 3-factor solution: Factor 1 referred to the availability of potentially hazardous items (substances, guns) in the home environment, Factor 2 reflected the witnessing of substance use, and Factor 3 represented abuse and neglect. In EA, Factor 1 was associated with suicide ideation and Factor 2 with suicide attempt. Our results also implicated Factor 3 in risk for suicide ideation and measures of genetic liability in both ideation and attempt. We did not find evidence of associations in the AA group, and no significant gene-by-environment interactions in either group. Our results inform prevention efforts, as they indicate the importance of specific features of the home environment (i.e., what is observed by children but also what is available to them) in addition to the experience of abuse and neglect.
童年不良经历一直被认为与自杀念头和行为（STB）的风险有关。然而，这些经历的性质及其与STB的具体关联仍不明确。素质-应激模型也表明，不良经历的影响取决于一个人的遗传易感性，不过使用总体遗传风险测量方法得出的结果还需要更多实证支持。本研究旨在增进我们对童年逆境和遗传易感性在STB风险中所起作用的理解。参与者来自全国青少年到成人健康纵向研究。首先，我们在全样本（N = 11606）中进行了随机的对半探索性和验证性因素分析，以研究童年逆境的潜在结构。其次，我们进行了逻辑回归，以评估童年逆境、STB的总体遗传易感性（用多基因分数衡量）及其相互作用在两个祖先群体（欧洲裔[EA，N = 3424]和非洲裔[AA，N = 1172]）中与自杀意念和自杀未遂的关系。研究结果表明，童年逆境的结构最好用一个三因素模型来表示：因素1指家庭环境中潜在危险物品（物质、枪支）的可得性，因素2反映物质使用的目睹情况，因素3代表虐待和忽视。在欧洲裔群体中，因素1与自杀意念相关，因素2与自杀未遂相关。我们的结果还表明因素3与自杀意念风险以及意念和未遂中的遗传易感性测量有关。我们在非洲裔群体中未发现关联证据，且在两个群体中均未发现显著的基因-环境相互作用。我们的结果为预防工作提供了信息，因为它们表明了家庭环境的特定特征（即儿童所目睹的以及他们所能接触到的）除了虐待和忽视经历之外的重要性。
