Effort–reward Imbalance at Work, Parental Support, and Suicidal Ideation in Adolescents: A Cross-sectional Study from Chinese Dual-earner Families

Abstract

BackgroundIn contemporary China, most parents are dual-earner couples and there is only one child in the family. We aimed to examine the associations of parents' work stress with suicidal ideation among the corresponding adolescent. We further hypothesized that low parental support experienced by adolescents may mediate the associations.MethodsCross-sectional data from school students and their working parents were used, with 907 families from Kunming City, China. Stress at work was measured by the effort–reward imbalance questionnaire. Perceived parental support was assessed by an item on parental empathy and their willingness to communicate with the adolescent. Suicidal ideation was considered positive if students reported thoughts about suicide every month or more frequently during the previous 6 months. Logistic regression was used to examine the associations.ResultsWe observed that parents' work stress was positively associated with low parental support, which was in turn associated with adolescent suicidal ideation. The odds ratio for parents' work stress and adolescent suicidal ideation was 2.91 (95% confidence interval: 1.53–5.53), and this association was markedly attenuated to 2.24 (95% confidence interval: 1.15–4.36) after additional adjustment for parental support. Notably, mothers' work stress levels exerted stronger effects on children's suicidal ideation than those of fathers.ConclusionParents' work stress (particularly mother's work stress) was strongly associated with adolescent's suicidal ideation, and the association was partially mediated by low parental support. These results need to be replicated and extended in prospective investigations within and beyond China, in order to explore potential causal pathways as a basis of preventive action.

Living Conditions of Adolescents Who Have Attempted Suicide in Mexico

“…Furthermore, poverty is closely linked to insecurity in the areas of employment, social conditions, and income [ 20 ], negatively affecting access to health services. More specifically, some studies have shown that employment insecurity among parents contributes to suicidal ideation among the adolescent population [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. A study in Mexico indicated that adolescents considered family problems the main cause of attempted suicide [ 21 ].…”

“…These determinants have been associated with suicide attempts. Various authors have indicated that precarious work conditions, occupational stress and low income among parents are factors contributing to suicide attempts in adolescents [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. As social determinants, health systems influence suicidal behavior when lack of access, limited availability and low quality of health services are barriers for the prevention or early detection of this public health problem [ 1 ].…”

Parenting Style, Feeding Patterns, and Adolescent Eating Behavior in South Kalimantan between Male and Female Adolescents

“…Previous studies indicate that adolescent sex is significantly related to feeding patterns (Larson et al, 2013;Loth et al 2013). Also, previous findings show that parental gender, parental education, parental occupation, parental income, and number of family members are significantly associated with parenting (Ambrosini et al, 2009;Berge et al, 2015;Larson et al, 2013;Li et al, 2017;Lohman et al, 2016;Loth et al, 2013). Therefore, these sociodemographic factors are important to be involved in research on adolescent eating behavior to better understand the relation between these variables and adolescents in other research locations.…”

Estructura familiar, ideación suicida y desesperanza en el adolescente

“…La ideación suicida se ha definido como cualquier pensamiento autoinformado de involucrarse en una conducta relacionada con el suicidio; aunque representa un estado de mayor susceptibilidad a la crisis de una conducta directa, se ha asociado al aumento del riesgo de futuros intentos de suicidio, especialmente en la adolescencia (Li, Loerbroks & Siegrist, 2017).…”

“…La relación con el padre presenta una correlación con el pensamiento suicida y no con la madre, como algunos estudios mencionan (Chiu et al , 2017;Sun et al , 2017). Sin embargo, con la madre solo se encontró correlación en la aceptación del suicidio como una salida de los adolescentes ante sus problemas, coincidiendo con estudios que muestran que la relación específicamente con la madre está asociada fuertemente con la ideación suicida en adolescentes (Li et al , 2017). Esta aproximación ha subrayado la importancia de la prevalencia de la ideación suicida entre estudiantes, esto implica la necesidad de realizar estrategias de prevención/intervención temprana, además se sugiere que las Universidades deberían evaluar sistémicamente la ideación suicida (Soares et al , 2015).…”