Suicide in young Norwegians in a life course perspective: population-based cohort study

Abstract

Suicide in young adults may be rooted in early childhood, and the effect is likely to act through several mechanisms, some of which may be linked to the composition and stability of the parental home. A life course perspective may add to our understanding of suicide.

Family size and perinatal circumstances, as mental health risk factors in a Scottish birth cohort

“…This would be consistent with parental investment theory, which describes parental investment of finite resources in an individual offspring at the cost of parents' ability to invest in other offspring [30][31][32]. Gravseth et al [3] speculated that children who enjoy greater parental attention in early life may develop greater resilience [33] to maladaptive responses to stressful events in adulthood. In contrast, however, compared with only children, those from sibships of two, and of three, were found to have a lower risk of self-harm.…”

“…Previous population-based cohort studies have observed higher maternal parity, younger maternal age and low birth weight to be independently associated with suicidal behaviour in young adulthood [1][2][3]. There is a wellestablished link between suicide and mental illness [4,5] but it is not clear if these perinatal associations are specific to suicidal behaviour, or form part of a more general link with psychiatric morbidity.…”

Fetal growth, early life circumstances, and risk of suicide in late adulthood

“…Similarly, Riordan et al [13] found that high maternal parity, low maternal education, low maternal age at birth, and low birth weight were associated with higher rates of suicide in females and males aged 12-34 at the end of the follow-up period. However, not all studies [14][15][16] have produced similar results regarding a connection between low birth weight and increased suicide risk.…”

“…Using data from Norway, Gravseth et al [16] demonstrated several risk factors for suicide in young adulthood related to early life variables, including higher birth order, variation in maternal marital status, parental suicide, mental health indicators, low BMI, and lower educational level by age 19. Their results suggest that a myriad of individual and family characteristics may play a role in suicide risk.…”

Early Life Influences on Health and Mortality in Adulthood

“…In addition, a few well-done population-based investigations have also considered how early life parental death may alter the suicide risk of their adult offspring. Early death of a mother has been associated with an excess risk for suicide (Agerbo et al, 2002;Gravseth et al, 2010). A Swedish registrybased study examining data from 1969 to 2004 (Wilcox et al, 2010) found the risk of suicide for the offspring was elevated when parents committed suicide but not for other causes.…”