can ordinary life events be linked to stormy weather?

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm

– Emily Dickinson, ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers (1891)

A new study suggests that it may not only be major trauma that matters: an accumulation of ordinary life events, particularly those occurring within the family, may also be associated with suicidal ideation during adolescence.

When considering risk factors for suicidal ideation among young people, major traumas and childhood maltreatment often dominate the conversation. Decades of research has demonstrated that abuse and neglect in childhood can have long lasting impacts on mental health, but does the accumulation of ordinary life events also matter for adolescent suicidality?

This is the question tackled by Chen and colleagues in a new paper published in Lancet Psychiatry, using a large, international prospective dataset. The researchers examined whether patterns of exposure to life events across adolescence were associated with suicidal ideation, and whether particular types of life events were more strongly associated with suicidal ideation than others.

Methods

The authors used data from the multinational IMAGEN cohort, which recruited young people schools in eight cities across Germany, France, Ireland, and the UK, with initial recruitment taking place between 2008-2010 (Schumann G. et al, 2010). Participants were assessed over four timepoints at approximately ages 14, 16, 19 and 23 years.

The researchers used the Life Events Questionnaire (LEQ), which assesses 39 different life events a person has experienced in the past year (Newcomb MD. et al, 1981). Life events were analysed based on their classification into seven core domains: 1) family, 2) accidents, 3) distress, 4) autonomy, 5) deviance, 6) sexuality, and 7) relocation. Crucially, these are largely ordinary life stressors experienced while growing up, rather than specifically traumatic experiences.

Childhood maltreatment was measured separately using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), a 28-item scale to assess the five types of childhood maltreatment: 1) physical abuse, 2) emotional abuse, 3) sexual abuse, 4) physical neglect, and 5) emotional neglect (Bernstein DP. et al, 2003).

Suicidal ideation was captured at the first three timepoints via a dedicated LEQ item (Newcomb MD. et al, 1981) asking about ‘thoughts about suicide’ in the past 12 months. At the fourth timepoint, the question was changed to ‘thoughts about harming yourself’ so responses from this timepoint were not included in this analysis of suicidal ideation.

The authors adopted the statistical approach of latent trajectory modelling to identify groups of participants with different patterns of cumulative life event exposure over time. They then examined whether belonging to one of these trajectory groups was associated with suicidal ideation (adjusting for sex, parental education, parental ethnicity and childhood maltreatment) and explored whether the effect was consistent over time or interacted with maltreatment. Finally, they investigated whether the family domain was particularly influential by comparing trajectories of life events in the family domain alone, with trajectories based on the other six domains only.

Results

The study investigated 2,161 participants at the first timepoint, with some loss to follow-up across each timepoint, as is common in multi-phase research.

Four groups emerged: ‘high’, ‘mid-high’, ‘mid-low’ and ‘low’, based on how life event burden accumulated across adolescence. Just over half of the participants (1,125; 52%) were categorised into the ‘high’ life-event trajectory (i.e. having experienced many ordinary life events over time). This group had the highest cumulative exposure across the seven domains, and the highest rate of suicidal ideation at all timepoints measured. For example, at age 14 years, 11.3% of the ‘high’ group reported suicidal ideation, compared to 4.1% in the ‘mid-high’ group, 6.6% in the ‘mid-low’ group, and 4.5% in the ‘low’ group.

Percentages in the age columns are raw figures. Risk differences are adjusted for sex, parental education, parental ethnicity and childhood maltreatment. The mid-high, mid-low and low groups did not differ significantly from each other.

After adjusting for demographic factors and childhood maltreatment, young people in the ‘high’ trajectory group had a predicted probability of suicidal ideation about 6 percentage points higher than each of the other three groups. This difference did not change significantly over time. Interestingly, the three lower-exposure groups did not differ significantly from one another. This suggests the relationship was not a simple dose-response effect, where each extra event adds a little more risk. Instead, the authors suggest that the build-up of life events may need to pass a threshold before risk rises.

The domain-specific analysis compared life-event trajectories based on family events alone (e.g. parental conflict, divorce, parental substance use, financial difficulties) with trajectories built from the other six domains combined. The family-only model explained slightly more of the variation in suicidal ideation (marginal R2 = 0.078) than the model based on the other six domains (marginal R2 = 0.073). The authors saw this as support for their hypothesis, but the difference is very small and was not formally tested, so it should be read with caution.

The link between life event trajectories and suicidal ideation held after adjusting for childhood maltreatment. There was also no significant interaction between the two, so the association did not seem to differ depending on whether young people had experienced maltreatment. As this is an observational study, it cannot tell us whether life events cause suicidal ideation.

Conclusions

Overall, the study supports taking a broad, contextual and longitudinal view of adolescent suicidal ideation; asking not only about major traumas, but also about ordinary life events. This broader lens may help clinicians, researchers and families better understand the circumstances in which suicidal ideation can emerge, while recognising that no single factor can explain suicidal ideation in every young person experiencing it.

Strengths and Limitations

This study has several strengths. The prospective longitudinal design allowed the authors to track life events from age 14 to 23, and suicidal ideation from 14 to 19, rather than relying on a snapshot of a single point in time. Additionally, the sample size and multinational scope potentially lend the findings to some generalisability across Western European contexts. Further, the trajectory modelling approach is a genuine methodological strength, recognising that young people do not all experience stressful events in the same way or at the same frequency.

However, there are also important limitations to note:

First, the same instrument (i.e. LEQ) was used to assess life events (exposure) and suicidal ideation (outcome) which can introduce common-method bias, whereby characteristics of the measurement approach influence both the exposure and outcome. Put simply, because the same instrument was used for both variables, in the same format and measured at the same time, any observed association between life events and suicidal ideation might reflect the measurement process itself, rather than a genuine underlying relationship. Further, suicidal ideation was measured using a single item on the LEQ rather than a dedicated suicidality scale, meaning it cannot indicate intensity, frequency or intent which may have impacted on the effect sizes reported.

Second, although adjustments were made for demographics and childhood maltreatment, no adjustments were made for psychological covariates (e.g. personality, impulsivity, and aggressiveness), which have previously been reported to be associated with adolescent suicidality (McKeown RE. et al, 1998; Zhang P et al, 2012).

Third, the study excluded participants with severe physical, neurological or mental illnesses, which limits the generalisability of these findings to these groups.

Fourth, although most life events are not time or context-dependent, the LEQ (developed in 1980s) may not account for modern stressors (e.g. online harassment, cyberbullying, and social exclusion).

Implications for practice

The findings suggest that clinicians and other professionals assessing suicidal risk in adolescents may need to consider the wider accumulation and context of everyday stressors, rather than focusing primarily on major trauma or childhood maltreatment.

This does not mean that every stressful life event should be treated as a warning sign for suicide. Nor does it suggest that asking young people about ordinary life events can replace a comprehensive assessment of suicidal ideation, mental health, social circumstances or safeguarding needs. Instead, the study highlights the potential value of asking about the pattern and accumulation of difficulties over time. In particular, difficulties within the family environment may warrant careful exploration.

Future studies could build on this work by incorporating more contemporary stressors, including experiences occurring through social media and online environments. It would also be useful to examine how these types of life events compare to those already investigated, and whether the timing, duration, severity and perceived meaning of an event influence suicidal ideation.

The findings may also be relevant to prevention. If cumulative everyday stress contributes to suicidal ideation, this might indicate that interventions designed to strengthen family relationships, reduce conflict, and address social and environmental stressors could potentially form part of a broader prevention strategy.

Statement of interests

Charlotte Williamson has no conflicts of interest to declare. A draft of this blog was shared with Sonnet 5 for spelling and grammar proofreading.

Editor

Edited by Laura Hemming.

Links

Primary paper

Pei-Jung Chen, Andrew Lawrence, Xuemei Ma, Rebecca Pollard, Maryam Matter, Svenja Kretzer, Seeromanie Harding, Carmine Pariante, Mitul Mehta, Giovanni Montana, Tobias Banaschewski, Arun Bokde, Sylvane Desrivières, Antoine Grigis, Hugh Garavan, Penny Gowland, Andreas Heinz, Jean-Luc Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillère Martinot, Eric Artiges, Frauke Nees, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos, Tomáš Paus, Luise Poustka, Sarah Hohmann, Michael Smolka, Nilakshi Vaidya, Henrik Walter, Robert Whelan, Paul Wirsching, Gunter Schumann, Chiara Nosarti & Paola Dazzan (2026) Life event trajectories and suicidal ideation throughout adolescence: a prospective cohort study from Germany, France, Ireland and the UK. Lancet Psychiatry 2026 13 190-199. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(25)00359-1 

Other references

Schumann G, Loth E, Banaschewski. et al (2010) The IMAGEN study: reinforcement-related behaviour in normal brain function and psychopathology. Molecular Psychiatry 2010 15 1128-1139. https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2010.4

Newcomb MD, Huba GJ & Bentler PM (1981) A multidimensional assessment of stressful life events among adolescents: derivation and correlates (PDF). Journal of Health and Social Behavior 1981 22(4) 400-415. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136681

Bernstein DP, Stein JA, Newcomb MD. et al (2003) Development and validation of a brief screening version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Child Abuse & Neglect 2003 27(2) 169-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(02)00541-0

McKeown RE, Garrison CZ, Cuffee SP. et al (1998) Incidence and predictors of suicidal behaviors in a longitudinal sample of young adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1998 37(6) 612-619. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199806000-00011

Zhang P, Roberts RE, Liu X. et al (2012) Hostility, physical aggression and trait anger as predictors for suicidal behavior in Chinese adolescents: a school-based study. PLoS ONE 2012 7(2) e31044. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031044

Photo credits