SEPARATION DIVORCE AND CHILD AND ADOLESCENT COMPLETED SUICIDE/

Objective: To investigate factors that may modify the effect of separa tion/divorce on youth suicide. Method: A case-control, psychological a utopsy study of 120 of 170 consecutive suicides younger than age 20 an d 147 community age-, sex-, and ethnic group-matched controls living i n the greater New York area was conducted. Fifty-eight suicide victims and 49 community controls came from nonintact families of origin, ind icating the permanent separation/divorce of the biological parents. Po tential modifiers of separation/divorce include youth's age at separat ion, custodial parent's remarriage, nonresidential parent's frequency of contact, parent-child relationships, and parental psychopathology. Results: The relatively small impact of separation/divorce was further diminished after accounting for parental psychopathology. An interact ion of separation/divorce and the father-child relationship emerged. C onclusion: The dramatic increase in youth suicide during the past thre e decades seems unlikely to be attributable to the increase in divorce rates.