Suicidal Ideation

High family conflict and low parental monitoring are associated with an increased risk for suicidality and self-injury in children, according to results of a cross-sectional analysis published in JAMA Network Open.

Major depressive disorder and noncombat trauma can serve as identifiers of suicide ideation risk among United States Army soldiers during combat deployment, according to results of a survey study published in JAMA Network Open.

High school students who reported concussions were at greater risk for a suicide attempt, according to survey findings published in Journal of Affective Disorders.

Several suicide risk scales lack the specificity to predict suicidal behavior in a psychiatric context, according to results of a prospective multicenter cohort study published in Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Although women who have had an abortion have a higher risk for nonfatal suicide attempts, the abortion itself is not the cause, according to results of a longitudinal cohort study published in Lancet Psychiatry.

There is an urgent need for immediate identification of suicidal behavior in adolescents and young adults to prevent or diminish the impact of reoccurring patterns of suicidal behaviors, according study results published in JAMA Network Open.

Between 1991 and 2017, nearly one in five high school students reported suicidal ideation, and more than one in 10 had a plan for suicide, according to research published in Pediatrics. Although researchers observed an overall downward trend in suicidal ideation and plans during the study period, they noted a rise in ideation and attempts among black adolescents.

An updated policy statement and a technical report issued by the AAP highlighted the need for increased involvement among pediatricians in their patients’ mental health care and increased mental health care training in medical education programs.

Since the turn of the century, organizations including the CDC and WHO have reported increasing suicide trends across the United States. Specifically, the CDC noted a 30% increase in suicide between 1999 and 2016. Globally, nearly 800,000 people die from suicide each year, and it remains the second leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 29 years, according to WHO.

Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day, and WHO has declared suicide prevention as the focus for 2019. According to WHO, someone dies by suicide every 40 seconds, and it chose this year’s theme “to raise awareness of the scale of suicide around the world and the role that each of us can play to help prevent it.”