(PS13-1) Investigating the Impact of Parent-adolescent Acculturation Gap and Conflict Resolution on Suicide Ideation Severity

Abstract Text: Over 1 in 5 Latine adolescents thinks about suicide in a given year (CDC, 2021). Past research has suggested that gaps in acculturation between Latine adolescents and their parents, along with distress associated with this gap, may confer risk of suicide ideation and attempts, but evidence for this assertion has been mixed (e.g., Ortin et al., 2018; Zayas et al., 2009). One possibility for previous discrepant findings is that acculturation gaps only impact suicide ideation to the degree that they are associated with conflicts between parents and their teens. We sought to understand whether parent-adolescent conflict resolution would impact the relationship between parent-adolescent acculturation gaps and suicide ideation. Fifty-six Hispanic/Latine parent-youth dyads participated in this study, and they were recruited from outpatient clinics and emergency departments of New York City Hospitals. Adolescent ages ranged from 12-18 years and included 43 females and 14 males.Fifty adolescents identified as cisgender, 3 identified transgender, and 3 identified as queer-gender. Parents and adolescents completed the Cultural Life Style Inventory (CLSI) at baseline, and acculturation gap was operationalized as the difference between the adolescent’s acculturation score and the parent’s acculturation score. Family conflict resolution was measured at 3-months using the Parent-Child Interaction Questionnaire (PACHIQ), and suicide ideation was measured at baseline and 3-month follow up, using the Suicide Ideation Questionnaire (SIQ-Jr). Parent-adolescent acculturation gap, measured at baseline, did not predict suicide ideation severity at 3-month follow-up and was not significantly associated with family conflict resolution. However, lower family-conflict resolution predicted higher suicide ideation at 3 months. These results suggest that parent-adolescent conflict resolution impacts suicide ideation severity among Latine adolescents independently of any differences in parent and adolescent acculturation. Future studies should explore potential long-term effects of parent-adolescent conflict resolution on suicide ideation.