Military children more likely to have a history of suicide attempts [LATimes.com]

California high school students who have a parent in the military are far more likely than those from civilian families to have recently attempted suicide, according to a new study.

The findings are based on a survey of ninth and 11th graders at 261 schools across the state. The data were collected in 2012 and 2013.

Of 2,409 students with a parent in the military, 11.7% answered yes when asked if they had attempted suicide in the previous year. For the 21,274 students with civilian parents, that figure was 7.3%.

About a third of the suicide attempts in both groups required medical treatment, the survey said.

The study, published Thursday in the journal European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, did not consider completed suicides.

In trying to explain the results, the researchers said the stresses of more than a decade of war — parents away on long deployments or back home dealing with physical and mental health problems — had trickled down to children in military families.

[For more of this story, written by Alan Zarembo, go to http://www.latimes.com/science...-20150319-story.html]