Mental health issues seem to be increasingly present in the patients we care for. Is it that we are doing a better job identifying these issues or is the prevalence increasing over time? One tragic end-point of a serious mental health disorder is when an older child or teen thinks about or attempts suicide. Therefore, looking at trends in suicide attempts or ideation may help determine indirectly the burden of mental health issues among teens. Plemmons et al. (10.1542/peds.2017-2426) have studied such trends in a study we are releasing this week. The authors performed a retrospective analysis of administrative and billing data in 31 US children’s hospitals looking at emergency and inpatient encounters for suicide ideation (SI) or suicide attempts (SA) from 2008-2015. Sadly, almost 116,000 encounters were reported and even sadder was the finding that the prevalence of SI/SA visits doubled during the 8 years studied, from 0.66% in 2008 to 1.82% in 2015. In addition, the authors looked at different age groups and by gender and saw increases in SI and SA over time in all categories. They also looked at seasonality and found Spring and Fall to have the highest percentage of SI/SA cases. There are a lot of worrisome data in this study that warrants your attention, which can, in turn, be used to raise your awareness of how important primary care and depression screening can be if we want to better identify those at risk of considering suicide or even attempting it. Check out this important study and share what you learn with schools, guidance counselors, and others who work closely with school-aged children and adolescents to remind them that failure to assess the mental health of your patients can result in near fatal or even fatal outcomes that no one wants to see happen. We hope this article will make you think what else you can be doing to encourage older children and adolescents to feel safe enough to open up to you during their health maintenance visits—and in turn result in a reduction going forward of the worsening suicide trends described in this article.
Skip Nav Destination
Trends in Suicide Ideation or Attempts Suggest Worsening Mental Health Problems
:
Trends in Suicide Ideation or Attempts Suggest Worsening Mental Health Problems
:
May 23, 2018
PDF Icon
PDF LinkDownload PDF
Content License:FreeView
Article type:
Pediatrics Blog
Copyright © 2018 American Academy of Pediatrics