Posttraumatic stress disorder symptom clusters, suicidal ideation, and social support in a clinical adolescent sample

Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a risk factor for adolescent suicidal ideation (SI). This study explored the relation between PTSD symptom clusters and SI, and whether social support moderates this association, in a cross-sectional, adolescent, clinical sample (N = 125). We hypothesized that each cluster would be positively associated with SI severity and that social support would buffer these associations. Only the persistent avoidance cluster was significantly associated with SI severity. Further, social support moderated this association. Results highlight the positive association between persistent avoidance symptoms of PTSD and SI and suggest that bolstering social support serves a protective function.

Note

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for the support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of NIMH. The authors thank NIMH for the support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of NIMH.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Presence or absence of SI during the past month is a symptom of MDD. To determine if including this variable as a covariate introduced a potential confound in results, both linear regression models were also run without MDD as a covariate. A similar pattern of results was obtained.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health under Grant R01 MH065885 (Esposito-Smythers, PI).