Parental separation in childhood, social capital, and suicide thoughts and suicide attempts: A population-based study

Abstract

Parental separation in childhood, social capital, and suicide thoughts and suicide attempts: A population-based study.Lindström, Martin; Rosvall, Maria General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal

Parental separation in childhood and self-reported psychological health: A population-based study

“…Our study is a population-based study with a very high number of participants, which may be regarded as an important strength. The results are also in accordance with a previous study concerning the associations between parental 11 separation/divorce in childhood and suicide thoughts and suicide attempts and their age patterns in the age strata 0-4, 5-9, 10-14 and 15-18 years (Lindström and Rosvall, 2015).…”

“…The prevalences of being married were 65.5% among men and 62.5% among women, being unmarried 25.6% among men and 22.7% among women, being divorced 7.0% among men and 9.5% among women, and being widower/widow 1.9% among men and 5.4% among women. The prevalences of low emotional support were 38.8% among men and 31.6% among women, low instrumental support 28.6% among men and 23.4% among women, low generalized trust in other people 37.1% among men and 37.3% among women, less severe and/or shorter period of 24.3% among both men and women, and more severe and/or longer period of economic stress in childhood 8.1% among and 8.5% among women (Lindström and Rosvall, 2015). Table 2 shows that the odds ratios and prevalence (%) in bivariate analyses of poor psychological health were significantly higher among those who had experienced parental separation/divorce in childhood (with the exception of men who had had this experience at age 5-9 years), among the youngest adults (age group 18-24 years) than among those aged 35 and above among men and among those 25 and above among women, among those born abroad, among the unskilled blue collar workers (only among women), those on long term sick leave, the unemployed, the students, those without SES information, the unmarried, the divorced, those with low emotional support, low instrumental support, low trust and those who had experienced less severe and severe economic stress in childhood among both men and women.…”

“…However, the item concerning parental separation/divorce defines stratified age intervals for the 0-18 years of age childhood period for the respondents' childhood, and also precedes the age interval 18-80 years when participants responded to the questionnaire items (Lindström and Rosvall, 2015).…”

“…Recently, sensitive periods, a sensitive period is a concept which in contrast to the concept critical period permits several different sensitive periods (Ben-Schlomo and Kuh, 2002), were demonstrated for the association between parental separation/divorce and suicide thoughts and suicide attempts. Parental separation/divorce at any age 0-18 years among women but at 0-4 years and 15-18 years among men was significantly associated with suicide attempts in adulthood (Lindström and Rosvall, 2015). To specify the time of parental separation/divorce in childhood makes it possible to specify critical periods, i.e.…”

“…Previous results indicate that age, country of birth, socioeconomic status (SES), civil (marital) status, aspects of social support such as emotional and instrumental support, and generalized trust in other people (an aspect of social capital) are associated with psychological health Lindström et al, 2014;Lindström and Rosvall, 2015), which is why these variables are included in the analyses. Self-reported economic stress in childhood has been shown to be associated with poor mental health in adulthood (Lindström et al, 2014), and is thus also included in the analyses.…”