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Suicide rates in some parts of Mexico doubled between 2010 and 2020 (Hermosillo-de-la-Torre et al., 2020), and among Mexican females, the 15-19 year-old age group had the highest rate of suicide in 2017 (INEGI, 2019). Studies in the US suggest that suicidal ideation is linked to lower intentions to seek help (Calear et al., 2014) and that more than half of adolescents with suicide-related outcomes did not seek any services in the past year (Husky et al., 2012). Due to the connection between suicidality and reduced help-seeking among adolescents in the US, further research is needed on this topic in Mexico. The current study aims to assess connections between parent and youth help-seeking intentions (HSI) in Mexico as they relate to suicidal thinking.
Methods
Data were collected from parent and youth dyads in Mexico. Parents were contacted via email, and eligible participants needed to be living in Mexico, speak Spanish, and have a child between the ages of 14-17 who could also complete the survey. Surveys were administered online through Qualtrics and included various demographic, health and well-being, suicide prevention, and health literacy questions. The final sample consisted of 373 parent-child dyads with at least one dyad living every state in Mexico. Help-seeking intentions for both parents and youth were measured using a modified 9-item version of the General Help Seeking Questionnaire, which asked specifically about seeking help for suicidal thoughts. Respondents were asked to rate their likelihood of seeking help from nine help sources on a scale from 0=extremely unlikely to 3=extremely likely. Help sources included multiple categories of family members, friends, and professionals. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses were conducted to assess whether parent HSI predicted youth HSI. Controls included age, sex, family socioeconomic status, whether the family lived in a rural location, and youth well-being (self-reported using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale).
Results
Our findings confirmed our hypothesis, with parent HSI being a significant predictor of youth HSI (b = 0.50, d = 0.47, p < 0.001, adj. r2 = 0.36). Interestingly, similar patterns of help-seeking preference were discovered between parents and youth. For example, youth were most likely to seek help from a parent, followed by a mental health professional, a partner, another relative, and then a friend. Parents were almost equally likely to seek help from a mental health professional and a partner, followed by a parent, a friend, and another relative.
Conclusions and Implications
Knowing that parent help-seeking intentions are linked to adolescent help-seeking intentions may be of benefit to health professionals, community leaders, and researchers. Parent-focused help-seeking improvement programs may serve to have an indirect positive impact on adolescent HSI, thus reducing risk for suicidality among teens in Mexico. Further research should expound on the directionality of this connection, use random sampling so results can be generalized, and consider replicating aspects of this project among populations in Mexico who were not eligible for this study (i.e., those without internet access, families with younger teenagers, etc.).