Original title: Association between plain-water consumption and suicide attempts among U.S. adolescents: Evidence from the 2017–2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey
Researchers compared teens’ reports of plain-water intake in the past seven days with whether they reported a suicide attempt in the past year. Teens reporting no plain water had higher odds of an attempt than teens reporting water three times a day. Among teens who reported any water, more frequent intake was not linked to a clear change in odds. After accounting for many risk factors at once, the link weakened, and adding water intake barely changed prediction. The result suggests that reporting no water may mark broader risk, not cause suicide attempts.
Imagine a coach noticing that players who arrive without a water bottle also tend to miss practice. That clue does not mean the empty bottle caused the absences, and among players who bring one, carrying more bottles does not track with attendance. In this paper, reporting no water is like the empty bottle: it marks a group with higher risk, but it adds little to predicting who will have the outcome once other clues are considered.
For people trying to understand adolescent suicide risk, the finding points to an unusual response that may signal broader difficulties. But it does not make water intake a useful stand-alone way to predict who will attempt suicide.
The survey shows an association, not that drinking no water causes suicide attempts. The response covers the past seven days, while attempts are reported for the past year, so it cannot establish which came first. The association weakened after simultaneous adjustment for risk domains, and adding the response barely improved prediction. The abstract does not establish how well the finding applies beyond U.S. adolescents or how it could be used in practice.
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Association between plain-water consumption and suicide attempts among U.S. adolescents: Evidence from the 2017–2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey — Catalina Cañizares, Francisco Cardozo, Abiraahmi Shankar et al. — PLoS ONE — doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0359065
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.