Family Military Deployments May Increase Teen Suicide
Children with a parent or sibiling deployed in the military recently are more likely to experience depression and suicidal thoughts, according to a new USC study.
The study, published on Monday by the USC School of Social Work, found that military children were 56% more likely than their non-military classmates to report sadness and loneliness for at least two weeks in the last year and are more than 30% more likely to report thoughts of suicide.
Assistant professor Julie Cederbaum said that the key factor in the research was deployment; the more times a parent or sibiling was deployed, the more likely it was that the adolescent's mental health was negatively affected.