Social Medicine and Health Policy, Department of Clinical Sciences in Malmö, Lund University, S-205 02 Malmö, Sweden. Electronic address: martin.lindstrom@med.lu.se.
To investigate associations between economic stress in childhood and suicide thoughts and attempts.
The 2012 public health survey in Scania, Sweden, is a cross-sectional postal questionnaire study including 28,029 participants, aged 18-80 years.
Associations were analyzed in logistic regressions.
A 12.1% prevalence of men and 15.5% of women had ever experienced suicide thoughts, while 3.2% of men and 5.3% of women had experienced suicide attempt. Roughly 24% had experienced less severe and 8% severe economic problems in childhood. Significant associations between economic stress in childhood and suicide thoughts and attempts remained throughout the age-adjusted and multiple adjusted analyses.
Economic stress in childhood is associated with self-reported suicide thoughts and suicide attempts in an adult general population.