Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
Overview
This chapter will examine both genetic and family-environmental factors associated with suicide and suicidal behavior, with an emphasis on youthful suicidal behavior. Described herein is a model for the familial transmission of suicidal behavior that includes both genetic and nongenetic components. To conclude, the research and clinical implications of the extant literature on familial factors in suicide will be delineated.
There are several lines of evidence supporting the importance of familial factors in suicidal behavior. First, there is evidence that suicidal behavior aggregates in families from twin, adoption, and family studies. Second, while the majority of suicide victims and suicide attempters are psychiatrically ill, most psychiatrically ill patients neither attempt nor complete suicide. This suggests that a psychiatric diagnosis may be necessary, but not sufficient to explain the phenomenon of suicidal behavior. Individuals who make suicide attempts also have a diathesis for suicidal behavior. That diathesis may be subject to familial transmission, and the familial transmission of the diathesis may be distinct from the familial transmission of psychiatric disorders. Finally, many studies have noted the prevalence of a disordered family environment in suicide attempters and completers, suggesting a familial, if not a genetic, contribution to suicidal risk. Each of these categories of studies will be reviewed in turn.
Adoption studies
The classic adoption study on suicide was performed in Denmark by Schulsinger et al. (1979), comparing the rates of suicide among the biological and adoptive relatives in adoptees who committed suicide and in a matched living adoptee control group.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.