Abstract
The contributions of religion to reduced suicide risk have been studied in adults and adolescents, though to our knowledge no comprehensive investigation has been conducted in early adolescents, at a time coinciding with emergence of suicide risk trajectories. In this largest study to date on this topic, we aimed to characterise the contributions of various measures of “private” and “public” religiosity to early adolescent suicide ideation (SI) and suicide attempt (SA) histories using information from a large, epidemiologically informed U.S. sample of adolescents (N = 7068; mean age = 12.89 years, 47% female) and their parents. In all youth, parent-reported adolescent religious importance was associated with reduced odds of SA (OR = 0.75, CI = 0.61–0.92, P = .005). Muslim youth were more likely (OR = 1.52, CI = 1.02–2.22, P = .033), and Catholic youth were less likely (OR = 0.80, CI = 0.67–0.95, P = .014), to report SI. A variety of sex differences were noted, with significant protective associations of adolescent self-reported religiosity on SI and SA, religious service attendance on SI, and religious importance on SI, in female—but not male—youth; and significant protective associations of religious importance on SA in male—but not female—youth. Against expectations, there was no evidence that parent religiosity moderated the link between youth religiosity and SI or SA. These results shed light on the roles of cultural and familial context in youth suicide risk, which may ultimately be targeted in screening and interventional approaches.
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Acknowledgements
SM would like to acknowledge Professor Murad M. Khan of the Brain and Mind Institute at the Aga Khan University, who has encouraged and shaped his thinking on religion and suicide. Author AW is funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (https://abcdstudy.org), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9-10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study® is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041048, U01DA050989, U01DA051016, U01DA041022, U01DA051018, U01DA051037, U01DA050987, U01DA041174, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041028, U01DA041134, U01DA050988, U01DA051039, U01DA041156, U01DA041025, U01DA041120, U01DA051038, U01DA041148, U01DA041093, U01DA041089, U24DA041123, U24DA041147. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html. A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/consortium_members/. ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators. The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time. The ABCD data used in this report came from [https://doi.org/10.15154/8873-zj65]. DOIs can be found at [https://nda.nih.gov/abcd/abcd-annual-releases.html].
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10943_2023_1981_MOESM2_ESM.jpeg
Supplementary Figure S1. Distributions on religion measures stratified by religious affiliation groups, with red dot indicating the group mean for each measure. (JPEG 188 KB)
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Supplementary Figure S2. Distributions on religion measures stratified by female and male youth, with red dot indicating the group mean for each measure. (JPEG 142 KB)
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Mirza, S., Wiglesworth, A., Fiecas, M.B. et al. Revisiting Associations Among Parent and Adolescent Religiosity and Early Adolescent Suicide Risk in the United States. J Relig Health 63, 1017–1037 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01981-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-023-01981-7