ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2022
Parenthood and lower risk of suicide in women and men: the total Swedish population followed across adulthood.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk and Protective Factors for Suicide Mortality in Youths: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA network open · 2026Pooled it
- Suicide and sociodemographic factors among older adults in Norway: a register-based study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- The association between the transition to parenthood and risk for nonfatal suicide attempt in a Swedish population-based sample.Psychological medicine · 2026Article
- Parenthood and all-cause mortality in older adults with schizophrenia: a multicenter 5-year prospective study.Revista brasileira de psiquiatria (Sao Paulo, Brazil : 1999) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPrevious studies suggest a protective effect of parenthood on suicide, but little is known about how the association may change across the lifespan, or in relation to sex, marital status or occurrence of psychiatric disorders.
methodsWe followed a cohort of over 5 million Swedish women and men, from 1991 to 2011, up to max. age 75, for death by suicide using national registers. Information on childbirths/adoptions, potential confounders and modifying factors were obtained from national registers. We assessed the associations between parenthood and suicide across adulthood using within time-stratified Cox regression models, with parenthood as a time-dependent exposure.
resultsParents had a lower risk of suicide than non-parents across the lifespan, after adjusting for sociodemographic factors. The association was most pronounced in young adults, especially young women, but attenuated with increasing age and converged between sexes in older age groups. The lower risk of suicide over the life course was similar whether parents were married, unmarried or divorced, apart from married men; among them, parents only had a lower risk above age 55. The lower risk in parents was also evident in people with a history of psychiatric hospitalizations, but disappeared from age 55 in this population.
conclusionThe lower risk of suicide was present in both parents, was most pronounced in young adulthood and weakened with increasing age. Our results are consistent with a plausible mechanism where feelings of responsibility and connectedness are protective against suicide in parents.
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