Suicide is the third leading cause teens, but teenagers and their parents underestimate the risk or think that it doesn’t happen in their own communities, a new study shows.
Researchers conducted focus groups with parents and teens living in urban, suburban, or rural areas in an effort to better understand their attitudes and perceptions regarding adolescent suicide.
They found that parents and teenagers were able to identify many of the most common risk factors for suicide, including depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and relationship problems.
But both groups also tended to underestimate the risk in their own backyards, believing instead that it was a problem in other communities, says study researcher Kimberly A. Schwartz, MD, of UMass Memorial Children’s Medical Center in Worcester, Mass.
“The thinking was that it might happen over there, but it doesn’t happen to us,” she tells WebMD.
Identifying at-Risk Teens
In 2006, 1,771 children and teens between the ages of 10 and 19 committed suicide in the U.S. Teenage boys were four times as likely as teenage girls to die by suicide and they were also more likely to use guns and suffocation to kill themselves. Girls were more likely than boys to use pills.
Among ethnic groups, teenage suicide rates were highest for Native Americans and Alaska Natives, with 15.4 deaths per 100,000 teens. Rates among white, Hispanic, and African-American teens were 4.7, 3.0, and 2.7 per 100,000, respectively.
Schwartz says many of the parents who participated in the focus groups expressed frustration about distinguishing between true warning signs of suicide and normal teen angst.
They recognized that guns and potentially lethal medications should be secured or removed from the homes of teens who are at risk for suicide, but acknowledged that they may have difficulty identifying those teens.
“There seemed to be a disconnect about the importance of securing guns and medications regardless of risk,” Schwartz says.
Both parents and teens wanted more information about how to identify and help at-risk teens.
The study appears in the February issue of Pediatrics.
If you want to learn when someone is at risk of committing suicide and what to do, schools and pediatricians should be able to help, but we can all become better educated through reliable resources on the Web. These authoritative sites list typical signs of suicide risk, and they also provide questions a parent or a friend can ask a teenager to find out if he is considering killing himself. Here are good places to start:
- The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry lists signs and symptoms of suicidal thinking, such as saying things like “I won’t be a problem for you much longer.”
- The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to ask the child directly about suicide. “Getting the word out in the open may help your teenager think someone has heard his cries for help.”
- The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free advice to someone considering suicide, as well as to friends and relatives, at 800-273-TALK.
- The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s teenage suicide page makes the point that talking with someone about suicide will not “give them the idea.” “Bringing up the question of suicide and discussing it without showing shock or disapproval is one of the most helpful things you can do,” the NAMI site says. “This openness shows that you are taking the individual seriously and responding to the severity of his or her distress.”
