The Family Check-Up and Youth Suicide: Assessing Indirect Effects of Improving Self-Regulation and Reducing...

The Family Check-Up (FCU) is a family-focused prevention program originally developed to reduce externalizing behaviors, which has demonstrated improvements in internalizing behaviors and suicide. The present study attempted a conceptual replication of previous results from a separate trial of the FCU, initiated in early childhood, that found that the FCU predicts reductions in suicide risk via improvements in youth self-regulation.

The current study examined whether the FCU would predict reductions in youth suicidality via improvements in self-regulatory ability, in an independent trial of the FCU, initiated in early adolescence. The sample included 782 families, youth were 50.7% female, and 11 years old at baseline.

Findings from previous trials were partially replicated, suggesting that improvements in self-regulatory skills in early adolescence support long-term reductions in suicide risk into early adulthood. However, the indirect effect of the FCU on suicide-related outcomes was only observed at the level of statistical trend in the current trial. Findings are discussed in the context of broader suicide treatments for youth involving family members and targeting important mechanisms of risk.

NCT01490307.