Relationship between suicidal ideation and family problems among young callers to the Japanese crisis hotline

• Published in: PloS one 2019-07, Vol.14 (7), p.e0220493-e0220493
• Main Authors: Ohtaki, Yuh, Doki, Shotaro, Kaneko, Hidetoshi, Hirai, Yasuhito, Oi, Yuichi, Sasahara, Shinichiro, Matsuzaki, Ichiyo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abuse; Adult; Aggression; Biology and Life Sciences; Child abuse; Children; Consulting services; Crises; Crisis Intervention - methods; Divorce; Domestic violence; Domestic Violence - statistics & numerical data; Engineering and Technology; Families & family life; Family; Family Conflict - psychology; Family relations; Female; Hotlines - statistics & numerical data; Human behavior; Humans; Japan; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; People and Places; Psychological aspects; Psychological distress; Risk factors; Self destructive behavior; Social Sciences; Studies; Suicidal behavior; Suicidal Ideation; Suicide; Suicide - prevention & control; Suicide - psychology; Suicide - statistics & numerical data; Suicides & suicide attempts; Teenagers; Telephone hotlines; Violence; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220493

Previous studies have reported an association between family relationships and suicidal behavior, and found that people with high suicidal ideation are not likely to consult with others about their distress. An effective consulting service is therefore necessary for such individuals. Crisis hotlines are effective for reducing suicide risk, but their associated suicide ideation rate and odds ratio of family problems children remain unclear. The present study investigated the suicidal ideation rate and odds ratio of callers under 20 years of age (N = 24,333) with family problems to the Japanese crisis hotline in 2012. There were 5,242 (21.5%), 18,061 (74.2%), and 1,030 (4.2%) calls related to family problems, other problems, and both, respectively. The suicidal ideation rate and odds ratio of callers with family problems were 2.2% and 0.426, respectively. This result suggested that callers with family problems have a significantly lower rate and odds ratio for suicidal ideation compared with others. However, some associations with a high suicide ideation rate were found for individual items among callers with family problems such as abuse (20.4%), family breakdown (16.1%), and domestic violence (10.6%). Further studies are needed to understand the suicidal ideation of callers with family problems and develop more effective preventive strategies.