Parental divorce may increase risk of suicidal thoughts

Children who experience divorce before the age of 18 are more likely to contemplate suicide as adults, suggests a new study published in the journal Psychiatry Research.

Researchers at the University of Toronto worked with 6,647 adult volunteers, of whom 695 had experienced parental divorce in childhood.

They found that growing up in a divorced household made men more than three times as likely to consider suicide as adults, while women were 83 percent more likely.

The link between divorce and suicidal thoughts grew stronger when other problems were present in the home, such as physical abuse, unemployment, or parental drug or alcohol addiction.

After adjusting for these factors, male and female reactions began to further diverge. In women, the absence of any of these additional issues all but negated the link between parental divorce and suicidal thoughts, but "…[t]he association between parental divorce and suicidal thoughts in men was unexpectedly strong, even when we adjusted for other childhood and adult stressors, socioeconomic status, depression and anxiety,"  said lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson.

Researchers stress that not every child who experiences divorce will grow up to have suicidal thoughts, and the "data in no way suggest that children of divorce are destined to become suicidal."