Parents more likely to attempt suicide in first years after child’s cancer diagnosis

However, parents are not more likely to die by suicide, finds study of parents in Denmark and Sweden

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

Parents who have a child with cancer are more likely to attempt suicide during the first years after diagnosis, according to a new study conducted by Qianwei Liu of Southern Medical University, China, and colleagues, published January 16th in the open access journal PLOS Medicine.

Receiving a cancer diagnosis for a child is an incredibly stressful and distressing experience for parents. These parents, especially mothers, face an increased risk of psychiatric disorders, but little is known about the risk of suicide. In the new study, researchers looked at the number of suicide attempts in more than 100,000 parents who had a child diagnosed with cancer in Denmark (1978-2016) or Sweden (1973-2014). For comparison, they looked at rates of suicide attempts in siblings of the parents of children with cancer, and in more than 1 million parents whose children did not have cancer.

The team saw an increased risk of a suicide attempt during the first years after a child’s cancer diagnosis, especially when the child was diagnosed under the age of 18 or had an aggressive or fatal form of cancer. However, there was no increased risk of parental suicide attempt later on, and no higher risk of death by suicide any time after the cancer diagnosis.

The new findings suggest that medical professionals should be more vigilant for possible suicide attempts among parents of children with cancer, especially during the first few years after diagnosis. The researchers propose that future studies should investigate whether these findings can be generalized to other countries with different healthcare systems, cultures, and cancer rates, as compared to Denmark and Sweden.

Liu adds, “Parents of children with cancer experienced an increased risk of suicide attempt during first few years after a child’s cancer diagnosis, but had no altered risk of death by suicide at any time.”

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In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Medicine: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004322

Citation: Liu Q, László KD, Wei D, Yang F, Fall K, Valdimarsdóttir U, et al. (2024) Suicide attempt and death by suicide among parents of young individuals with cancer: A population-based study in Denmark and Sweden. PLoS Med 21(1): e1004322. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004322

Author Countries: Sweden, United States, Denmark

Funding: This study was supported by the Swedish Cancer Society (grant number: 20 0846 PjF to FF), Karolinska Institutet (Senior Researcher Award and Strategic Research Area in Epidemiology to FF), the China Scholarship Council (grant number: 201700260291 to QL; grant number: 201700260276 to DW), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grant number: NNF18OC0052029 to JL), the Independent Research Fund Denmark (grant numbers: DFF-6110-00019B, DFF-9039-00010B, and 1030-00012B to JL), the Nordic Cancer Union (grant number: R275-A15770 and R278-A15877 to JL), the Karen Elise Jensens Fond (2016 to JL), and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (grant numbers: 2017-00531 to FF and 2015-00837 to KDL). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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JOURNAL

PLoS Medicine

DOI

10.1371/journal.pmed.1004322 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

COI STATEMENT

Competing interests: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.