Attempted suicide is rare during childhood and prevalence increases dramatically in adolescence (Lewinsohn, Rohde, Seeley et al., 2001). Therefore, prospective studies of SA etiology that span the period from childhood to adolescence when risk emerges may be especially informative, particularly if data are gathered from both parents and youth, yet few published studies have met these standards (Fergusson, Woodward, & Horwood, 2000; King, Kerr, Passarelli et al., 2010; Lieb, Bronisch, Hofler et al., 2005; Melhem, Brent, Ziegler et al., 2007). These rigorous prospective studies were an important step forward although they were limited to the use of low-risk community samples (Fergusson, Woodward, & Horwood, 2000; Lieb, Bronisch, Hofler et al., 2005) or very high risk clinical, psychiatric samples (King, Kerr, Passarelli et al., 2010; Melhem, Brent, Ziegler et al., 2007), with unclear generalizability to other populations.
