Correlates of suicidal behaviors among Asian American outpatient youths

Medical record abstraction was conducted at an ethnic-specific mental health outpatient clinic to identify correlates of suicidal behaviors in a sample of 285 Asian American youths. Some risk factors, such as parent-child conflict and age, which have been associated with suicidality in majority group youths, predicted suicidality in this sample, whereas other risk factors, such as gender, did not generalize to this sample. Acculturation interacted with the risk factor of parent-child conflict to predict suicidality. Less acculturated Asian youths were at proportionally greater risk for suicidality under conditions of high parent-child conflict than were their more acculturated counterparts. This finding underscores the importance of culture as a context for determining the relevance of stressors for potentiating psychopathology.