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Childhood trauma in suicide attempters: Case-control study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

L. Jimenez-Trevino*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo, Department of Psychiatry, CIBERSAM, Oviedo, Spain
L. Gonzalez-Blanco
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo, Department of Psychiatry, Oviedo, Spain
M.P. Garcia-Portilla
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo, Department of Psychiatry, CIBERSAM, Oviedo, Spain
H. Blasco Fontecilla
Affiliation:
Hospital Universitario Puerta de Hierro, Department of Psychiatry, Madrid, Spain
J. Lopez Castroman
Affiliation:
University of Montpellier, Department of Psychiatry, Montpellier, France
P. Courtet
Affiliation:
University of Montpellier, Department of Psychiatry, Montpellier, France
V. Carli
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Solna, Sweden
M. Sarchiapone
Affiliation:
University of Molise, Department of Psychiatry, Molise, Italy
E. Baca-Garcia
Affiliation:
Fundacion Jimenez Diaz, Department of Psychiatry, Madrid, Spain
P. Saiz Martinez
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo, Department of Psychiatry, CIBERSAM, Oviedo, Spain
J. Bobes Garcia
Affiliation:
Universidad de Oviedo, Department of Psychiatry, CIBERSAM, Oviedo, Spain
*
* Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

An expanding body of research suggests that childhood trauma and adverse experiences can lead to a variety of negative health outcomes, including substance abuse, depressive disorders, and attempted suicide among adolescents and adults. Alcoholism, depressed affect, and illicit drug use, which are strongly associated with such experiences, appear to partially mediate this relationship as observed in population studies.

Objectives

We have tested the association between early trauma and suicide attempts in a sample of suicide attempters from the Eureca International Project and a matched healthy control sample.

Methods

We have studied the prevalence of childhood stressful events compared with healthy controls in a multicentre sample of 791 suicide attempters (SA) and 630 healthy controls (C), we have measured childhood parental neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse, using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Chi2 tests were performed using SPSS v15.0.

Results

A significant increase in prevalence of childhood trauma was found in the suicide attempters sample for all types of trauma: childhood physical abuse: 25.3% (SA) vs. 11.1% (C) (Chi2 test: 120,108 P = 0.000); childhood sexual abuse: 18.2% (SA) vs. 2.4% (C) (Chi2 test: 88,212 P = 0.000); parental neglect 25.3% (SA) vs. 1.1% (C) (Chi2 test: 164,910 P = 0.000); childhood emotional abuse: 34.9% (SA) vs. 5.6% (C) (Chi2 test: 176,546 P = 0.000).

Suicide attempters were increasingly overrepresented compared with controls if experiencing more than 1 trauma: represented 77% of the sample who suffered 1 type of childhood trauma vs. more than 90% of the sample with 2 or more types of trauma.

Conclusions

A powerful graded relationship exists between adverse childhood experiences and risk of attempted suicide.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Type
FC101
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2016
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