Genetic risk, parental history, and suicide attempts in a diverse sample of US adolescents

Abstract

Background: Adolescent suicide is a major health problem in the US marked by a recent increase in Black/African American youth suicide trends. While genetic factors partly account for familial transmission of suicidal behavior, it is not clear whether polygenic risk scores of suicide attempt have clinical utility in youth suicide risk classification. Objectives: To evaluate the contribution of a polygenic risk score for suicide attempt (PRS-SA) in explaining variance in suicide attempt by early adolescence. Methods: We studied N=5,214 non-related Black and White youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (ages 8.9-13.8 years) who were evaluated between 2016 and 2021. Regression models tested associations between PRS-SA and parental history of suicide attempt/death with youth-reported suicide attempt. Covariates included age, sex, and race. Results: Over three waves of assessments, 182 youth (3.5%) reported a past suicide attempt, with Black youth reporting significantly more suicide attempts than their White counterparts (6.1% vs 2.8%, P<.001). PRS-SA was associated with suicide attempt (odds ratio [OR]=1.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1-1.5, P=.001). Inclusion of PRS-SA explained 2.7% of the variance in suicide attempts, significantly more than the base model including only age, sex and race, which explained 1.9% of the variance (P=.001). Parental history of suicide attempt/death was also associated with youth suicide attempt (OR=2.9, 95%CI 1.9-4.4, P<.001). Addition of PRS-SA to the model that included parental history significantly increased the variance explained from 3.3% to 4% (P=.002). Conclusions: Findings suggest that PRS-SA may be useful for suicide risk classification in diverse youth.