This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Number of youth suicide-related hospital visits on the rise
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Findings published in Pediatrics showed the annual percentage of hospital visits for suicide ideation and suicide attempts nearly doubled from 2008 to 2015 among U.S. children and teenagers.
“Although children’s hospitals serve as regional referral centers of expertise for many pediatric physical health conditions, little is known about their role in providing [suicide ideation] and/or [suicide attempt] care at a time when national rates of youth suicides appear to be increasing,” Gregory Plemmons, MD, of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University, and colleagues wrote. “Many pediatric hospitals have reported shortages of mental health clinicians over the last decade and pediatricians report lack of adequate training and skills to manage mental health complaints.”
Plemmons and colleagues analyzed monthly trends in emergency and inpatient encounters for suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts at children’s hospitals in the United States from 2008 to 2015. They conducted a retrospective analysis using administrative billing data from the Pediatric Health Information System database.
They used a linear regression model to calculate the average annual change in the percentage of suicide ideation and attempt encounters over the study period and compared the absolute difference percentage of these encounters between 2015 and 2008. They also performed analysis for subgroups by age (5 to 11 years, 12 to 14 years and 15 to 17 years), sex and race/ethnicity.
There were 115,856 suicide ideation and attempt emergency and inpatient encounters over the study period. Analysis demonstrated the annual percentage of all visits for suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts nearly doubled, increasing from 0.66% in 2008 to 1.82% in 2015 (average annual increase of 0.16 percentage points; 95% CI, 0.15-0.17). More than half of these resulted in hospitalization. Although all age groups experienced significant increases in average annual hospitalized encounters relating to suicidality and serious self-harm, the increases were highest in adolescents aged 15 to 17 years (0.27 percentage points; 95% CI 0.23-0.3) and those aged 12 to 14 years (0.25 percentage points; 95% CI 0.21-0.27).
“We were surprised to find that the increase is nationwide,” Plemmons told Healio Psychiatry. “Some of what we found was consistent with what has been reported by the CDC on teen suicide rates, and the increase in females, but we were also surprised to see the strong temporal association with the academic calendar — hospitalization rates were twice as high in October than July, for instance.”
The average annual increases differed by sex, with girls experiencing a higher increase of 0.14 percentage points (95% CI, 0.13-0.15) compared with 0.1 percentage points among boys (95% CI, 0.09-0.11). There was also seasonal variation in the percentage of suicide ideation and attempt encounters; the lowest percentage of cases occurred during the summer and the highest during spring and fall, according to the researchers.
“Our findings that ED and inpatient children’s hospital encounters for [suicide ideation] or [suicide attempt] have increased over the past decade underscore the increasing impact of mental health disorders in youth on children’s hospital services and the increasing role they appear to play in managing and treating youth,” Plemmons and colleagues wrote. “We hope our study can be used to inform future effective strategies for managing the growing burden of children with behavioral health issues.” – by Savannah Demko
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.