Suicides, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation among children and young people exposed to war: a scoping review

Objectives Worldwide, billions of children and young people live in areas affected by war. Suicide remains one of the three leading causes of death worldwide among people aged 15, 29 years. However, little is known about the effect of war on suicidal behaviours in this group. This review aims to assess suicides, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation among children and young people exposed to war or armed conflict.

Design A scoping review of studies was conducted using Web of Science, PubMed, Embase and PsycINFO databases from their inception to 18 November 2025, without any restrictions on geographical location. We included only observational studies with full-text, peer-reviewed English articles reporting any suicides, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation of children and young people aged 0, 24 years exposed to war. The quality of the included articles was assessed using the Quality Assessment with Diverse Studies. The protocol of the review was registered with the Open Science Framework on 29 March 2022 (https://osf.io/7kszh/).

Results Of the 3229 articles retrieved, 37 studies were eligible for review, providing data from 24 countries and covering a period of almost a hundred years (1921, 2025). Most studies (>20) focused on conflicts ongoing during or until the 2000s, whereas only three focused on World War II. The reported outcomes were suicides (n=9), suicide attempts (n=15) and suicidal ideation (n=21). Included studies spanned six continents, from Latin America (n=5, Colombia only) to Europe (n=10). We assessed the suicide rates during and after wars. There was some evidence of a decrease in suicide rates during war, but no clear trend in suicide rates post-war was observed. The prevalence rates of suicide attempts and suicidal ideation varied widely, without uniformity in the definitions used. War-related trauma, mental health problems, substance abuse and exposure to suicide or suicide attempts were identified as risk factors, while protective factors included family and social support.

Conclusions There is a need for more methodologically consistent and rigorous research on suicidal thoughts and behaviours in children and young people exposed to war or armed conflicts. Future research should identify mediator/moderating factors influencing suicidal behaviours and their links to mental health.