BIO

I am a freshman psychology major from North Carolina planning to double major in biology. I hope to pursue a career in psychiatry and am primarily interested in furthering my knowledge and experience with the clinical prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

Can Parent Reports Predict Youth Suicidal Ideation?

Abstract

Interest in suicidality and sleep deprivation research in youth, including through the lens of the parents who raise them, has increased on a large scale, especially with the adaptations of smart phones for adolescents and children and even more so after the introduction of COVID-19 and a more virtual world, altering the parent-child relationship. This analysis investigates the results of a recent therapy trial done on an intervention that focused on perceived burdensomeness (PB) in youth ages 10-17 years at-risk for suicidal ideation. The intervention worked on subject’s PB by having them complete tasks for others and reevaluate their relationships, especially the subjects’ positive effects on others. The analysis focuses on the youth-reported depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation and their correlations with parent-reported child depressive symptoms and sleep quality metrics utilizing R code. The results showed that parent-reported sleep and depression measures (and the lagged versions of these variables) all did not predict youth-reported suicidal ideation over time. The implications of this study could be used in analyzing current depression treatments and preventative measures, especially in adolescents and children, perhaps with changes to parent and guardian-based-reporting/data collection.

Keywords: psychology clinical youth depression suicidality