Data from forty-six adolescent suicide attempters and their mothers, and a comparison group of 46 non-suicidal adolescents and their mothers, were analyzed to identify sex and age differences in adolescent suicidal behavior. In general, discriminant analyses indicated that variables descriptive of intra-familial attachments were more predictive of younger adolescent suicidal behavior whereas variables descriptive of attachments outside the family were more predictive of older adolescent suicidal behavior. Also variables descriptive of the mother-child relationship were found to be more predictive of female adolescent suicidal behavior than that of males.
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