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Family patterns in suicidal behavior

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 1, page 689 (2022)Cite this article

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For decades, it was generally understood that suicide ‘runs in families’. That is, people with family histories of suicide tend to be at elevated risk of suicide. But less was known about whether family patterns in suicide risk are independent of family patterns in general mental health problems, as these outcomes tend to co-occur.

This changed in 1996 with a monumental family study by Brent et al. In this study, relatives of adolescents who died by suicide were compared with those of matched controls. Rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviours were higher in the relatives of adolescents who died by suicide than in relatives of matched controls, as were rates for Axis I and II disorders (two major categories of mental health problems).

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References

Original article

  • Brent, D. A. et al. Suicidal behavior runs in families: a controlled family study of adolescent suicide victims. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 53, 1145–1152 (1996)

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  • Campos, A. I. et al. Genetic aetiology of self-harm ideation and behaviour. Sci. Rep. 10, 9713 (2020)

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  • Joo, Y. Y. et al. Association of genome-wide polygenic scores for multiple psychiatric and common traits in preadolescent youths at risk of suicide. JAMA Netw. Open 5, e2148585 (2022)

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  • Mullins, N. et al. Dissecting the shared genetic architecture of suicide attempt, psychiatric disorders, and known risk factors. Biol. Psychiatry 91, 313–327 (2022)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

    Salahudeen Mirza

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  1. Salahudeen Mirza
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Correspondence to Salahudeen Mirza.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Mirza, S. Family patterns in suicidal behavior. Nat Rev Psychol 1, 689 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00119-y

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