Child abuse and adult suicide

Child abuse victims are among the most at-risk groups of committing suicide in later life, according to research.

A study in Canada involving 3,000 adults found that those who had been abused as a child were far more likely to have attempted suicide. Just under a third of sexual and physical abuse victims had attempted suicide, compared to just six per cent of those who had not experienced abuse.

Of those that took part in the survey, around one in ten had experienced either physical or sexual abuse. Repeated abuse over a number of years and abuse by a family member was the most strongly associated with suicide attempts. The research, which has been published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, was carried out by academics at the McGill Group for Suicide Studies in Montreal.