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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1553066
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring the Psychological therapies: Prevention and Intervention for Suicidal Attempt, Ideation, Behavior in Adolescents View all articles
Gender Differences in the Relationship between Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms and Suicide Risk among Psychiatric Outpatient Adolescents: The Role of Depressive Symptoms, Anxiety Symptoms, and Sleep disturbances
Provisionally accepted- The Third Hospital of Quzhou, Quzhou, China
Background: Suicide has become one of the leading causes of death among adolescents, with an increased risk observed in the psychiatric outpatient population. Therefore, exploring its risk factors is crucial. Obsessive-compulsive symptoms, being common in this patient group, warrant investigation into their impact mechanisms on suicide risk.This study enrolled 526 outpatient adolescents (396 females [75.29%]; Mage=15.39, SD=1.23) who completed relevant questionnaires and provided demographic data during their clinic visit. Results: Obsessive-compulsive symptoms positively predicted suicide risk in both males and females, with depressive symptoms mediating this effect. Sleep disturbances played a mediating role only in females, while anxiety symptoms did not mediate the relationship in either gender.Clinicians should pay closer attention to adolescents presenting with obsessivecompulsive and depressive symptoms, as well as female adolescents with sleep disturbances, to mitigate their elevated suicide risk.
Keywords: Obsessive-compulsive, suicide risk, depressive, Anxiety, Sleep disturbances, adolescents, outpatient
Received: 30 Dec 2024; Accepted: 04 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fang, Qian, Hu, Jiang and Hu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Weiming Hu, The Third Hospital of Quzhou, Quzhou, China
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