Parent’s Opioid Use Linked to Child’s Suicide Risk

Children of parents who use opioids may be at an increased risk of suicide attempts, according to the results of a recent study.

Rates of youth suicide and opioid overdose in adults have both increased over the past 15 years. To explore a possible connection between these two trends, researchers conducted a pharmacoepidemiologic study that linked medical claims for parental opioid prescriptions with those for suicide attempts in children.

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Overall, the study included 121,306 thirty- to fifty-year-old parents who used opioids or who did not use opioids, 148,395 ten- to nineteen-years-old children of parents who did not use opioids and 184,142 children of parents who did use opioids. Opioid use was defined as having prescription fills covering more than 365 days between 2010 and 2016.

Suicide was attempted by 212 (0.14%) children with parents who did not use opioids and 678 (0.37%) children of parents who did use opioids. Opioid use among parents was associated with a doubling of the risk of attempted suicide among children (odds ratio [OR] 1.99). The association remained significant after adjusting for child age and sex (OR 1.85), child and parent depression and diagnoses of substance use disorder (OR 1.46), and parental history of suicide attempt (OR 1.45).

“Children of parents who use prescription opioids are at increased risk for suicide attempts, which could be a contributing factor to the time trend in adolescent suicidality. The care of families with a parent who uses opioids should include mental health screening of their children,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Brent DA, Hur K, Gibbons RD. Association between parental medical claims for opioid prescriptions and risk of suicide attempt by their children [Published online May 22, 2019] JAMA Psychiatry. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0940.