Most U.S. Youth Who Die by Suicide Don’t Have Diagnosed Mental Health Issue

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Three out of five young people who die by suicide don’t have any prior mental health diagnosis, a new study finds.

People are missing the telltale signs that children, teens and young adults are troubled in ways that put them at risk for suicide, researchers said.

“Our findings point to the critical need to increase equitable access to mental health screening, diagnosis and treatment for all youth,” said researcher Dr. Jennifer Hoffman, an emergency medicine physician with the Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

The results also emphasize the need for safe gun storage, given how impulsive young people can be.

There had been no signs of mental troubles in 2 of 3 suicides involving a gun, the most common method among young people in this study, researchers found.

For the study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, researchers analyzed data on more than 40,000 suicides by youth ages 10 to 24 between 2010 and 2021. The data was gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Males, children younger than 14 and young people from minority or ethnic groups were most likely to commit suicide without any prior mental health diagnosis, results show.

To help prevent suicide, parents should touch base with their kids frequently about potential worries or distressing events, Hoffmann said.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/most-us-youth-who-die-by-suicide-dont-have-diagnosed-mental-health-issue