(PS13-49) The Prospective Role of Negative Life Events, Alcohol Use, and Social Support in the Development of Suicidal Ideation from Adolescent to Adulthood

Suicidality is a major public health crisis with rates suicidal ideation continuing to rise among youth and persisting in young adulthood and beyond (Thompson & Swartout, 2018; Van Meter et al., 2023).With the growing mental health crisis and mortality from suicide across development, it is imperative to uncover possible risk factors that may contribute to suicidality. Past research has linked risk factors such as negative life events, psychopathology, and individual cognitions to suicidality among adolescents and young adults (Alqueza et al., 2023). Despite these findings, there continues to be a lack of understanding about the role of risk and protective factors across time and across developmental periods.

Different types of stressful life events has been found to exacerbate the risk for ideation and later transition from ideation to attempts (Lannoy et al., 2022; Paul, 2018). Although stressful life events contribute to the risk for the development of SI, how adolescents cope may play a role in negative trajectories. One possible contributor to suicidal ideation for adolescents is substance use. Starting in adolescence, drinking has been found to heighten the risk for reported suicide ideation and may continue into emerging and young adulthood (Zhang & Wu, 2014). In the context of different risk factors, there are potential protective factors that may mitigate the risk for suicidality. Social support has been found to be protective in the development and expression of suicidal ideation (Miller et al., 2015).

Despite the increasing evidence of risk and protective factors playing a role in the SI, there continues to be a lack of understanding of risk pathways from adolescence to adulthood with past investigations often examining data cross-sectionally and without taking into account the potential roles of concurrent multiple risk and resiliency factors. To address the gap in understanding mechanisms and contexts for the experience of SI, the current investigation will explore negative life events and alcohol use as possible risk factors and social support as a possible protective factor. We hypothesized that increases in alcohol use and negative life events over time would be associated with increases in SI with social support mitigating the negative effects.

Data was provided from the Developmental Pathway Project (DPP), a community-based, longitudinal, epidemiological study of youth depression and conduct concerns recruited in four Seattle public schools (Vander Stoep et al., 2009). 137 participants (41.6% White; 13.9% Hispanic; 63.5% female) provided data starting in early adolescence until adulthood. Participants data on suicidal ideation, alcohol use, negative life events, perceived social support and participants’ reported sex and racial identity were used in analyses. Analysis will consist of cross lagged panel models assessing for differences and changes in SI over time using the R ‘lavaan’ package in R (Rosseel, 2012).

Preliminary findings suggest the risk for SI changes across time with a different risk factor emerging as significantly associated with subsequent SI. Findings could improve understanding of SI risk across development and inform targets for interventions and treatments based on identified risk factors.