Where Are Latino Families in Adolescent Suicide Prevention? A Scoping Study

As suicidality continues to increase among United States adolescents, there is a move towards family-oriented prevention efforts, an innovation that may be especially significant for Latino communities due to their family values. This scoping review systematically maps the contours of the recent empirical literature on the role of Latino families in adolescent suicide prevention. Limiting themselves to peer-reviewed papers written in English, published between 2000 and 2021, and mentioning family in the results or discussion sections, the authors reviewed the research on suicidal behavior(s) among Latino adolescents living in the mainland United States. Of the 104 papers identified from four online databases, most were published in the last decade. Articles tended to focus on the etiology of Latino adolescent suicide and excluded family members in their data collection. The researchers identified nineteen suicide-related family factors within the articles. While most identified publications acknowledged the importance of family, few included complex family-related factors (e.g., familial communication and familism), and even fewer actively involved family members.