Suicidal Attempts Among Young Latinos in the Americas: A Review of the Research

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE. Suicide attempts are in the rise among youth living in Latin American countries. Social workers working to reduce the prevalence of suicidal behaviors in this population need to understand the magnitude of this phenomenon and its causes. We examined the literature on suicide attempt among youth ages 10 to 24 in selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. We describe (a) the reported suicide attempts prevalence across several Latin American and Caribbean countries; (b) the approaches used by researchers to explore and explain this phenomenon; and (c) the overall quality of this literature.

METHODS. This study critically reviewed the research describing the epidemiology and factors associated to suicidal behaviors among Latino youth in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay. These data were published between 2000 and 2016. The search terms included: suicide, suicide attempts, causality, risk factors among others. Articles were identified through EBSCO, Google Scholar, Medline, and PsychInfo searches. In addition, reference lists of relevant articles were reviewed. Only empirical papers were considered (N = 51). Publications in English, Spanish, and Portuguese were included.

RESULTS. Suicide attempts prevalence rates varied greatly across the countries of interest. For example, 3.6%, 10.1%, and 19% of adolescents in community samples in Peru, Uruguay, Chile, respectively, reported attempting suicide. In general, research reported higher rates of suicide attempts among females than among males. For instance, 7.2% of Colombia adolescent females disclosed attempting suicide at least once in their lives, compared to 1.6% of male counterparts. The leading risk factors for suicide attempts among Latin American youth were: cigarette smoking, depression, sexual behaviors, and experiences of victimization. The effects of these risk factors on suicide attempts varied greatly across studies. For example, smoking was significantly associated with higher odds of suicidal attempts in several studies (n = 14). Among Brazilians, the statistically significant risk increase associated with smoking was much smaller (OR = 2.35) than that observed among Argentinean youth (OR = 22.2). The quality of this literature varies greatly. Most of the research reviewed here collected data using questions modeled after the U.S. CDC Youth Risk Behaviors Survey. Most research collected data from clinical samples, and almost exclusive focused on testing risk models.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. The literature on Latin American youth suicide attempts described great country and gender prevalence disparities. This literature is plagued by conceptual and methodological limitations.  Conceptually, the focus on risk models testing highly prevalent individual-level factors (e.g., smoking) did not built causal understandings of suicidal behaviors in this population. In addition, the research mostly explored the link between depression and suicidal behaviors in detriment of describing the relationship between externalizing behaviors and youth suicide attempts. Improving the quality of the research on suicidal behaviors among Latin American youth should be a priority for social workers and public policy makers across the continent.