Teen Suicide Questions and Answers
Question: How can parents prevent teen suicide?
Answer: While it is not possible with 100% certainty to prevent teen suicide, it is possible to dramatically reduce the risk. Some of the typical parental questions and their answers are given below, followed by Steps You Can Take To Prevent Teen Suicide.
Q: Are teens at greatest risk of completing suicide?
A: It is a myth that teens are at greatest risk of completing suicide. The truth is that elderly white males are at greatest risk for suicide completion, and most of those deaths are related directly or indirectly to debilitating physical illnesses. However, the rate of completed suicides among teens tripled between 1960 and the early 1990s, declining slightly thereafter to the currently estimated rate of 1-2 successfully completed suicides per 10,000 teens. While the percentage of teens who complete suicide is very small, this fact is of no consolation to the families who lose their children. The recent decline in the rate of teen suicides coincides with increased awareness of mental health resources, the decreased stigma associated with utilizing those resources, and the increased use of anti-depressant and mood-stabilizing medications.
Q: Do teen girls successfully complete suicide more often than teen boys?
A: While it is true that adolescent girls are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than are boys, boys are 4 to 5 times more likely to die from suicide than are girls. This is because boys are more likely to use more lethal means, particular guns, when making a suicide attempt.
Q: Are teens who have previously attempted suicide at highest risk for suicide completion?
A: No. While a previous suicide attempt does increase the likelihood of a future attempt being successfully completed, the fact is, the majority of successful suicides are first-time attempts.
Q: Are general school-based and other suicide education programs effective in reducing suicide among adolescents?
A: Studies to date have failed to show a positive correlation between suicide prevention programs and suicide rates; however, when programs are presented to adolescents who have been determined by specific screening processes to be at high risk for suicide, more positive results have been achieved. The most effective suicide preventative measures found to date are making alcohol and firearms less accessible to adolescents. More on this later.
Q: Does suicide does tend to run in families?
A: It has not been definitively proven that there is a direct genetic component involved in suicidal thinking and attempts, however, some twin studies seem to indicate a genetic link. What is known is that mental illness runs in families, and mental illness increases the likelihood of suicide attempts. In other words, if an adolescent shows signs of suicidal thinking and the family has a history of mental illness, especially clinical depression, there is increased reason for concern.
Q: Do most adolescent suicide completers have other mental health or conduct related problems?
A: Studies have shown that over 90% of adolescents who complete suicide have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and also have a substance abuse or conduct problem. The most common psychiatric disorders of teens who attempt or complete suicide are mood disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. If your son or daughter has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, is acting out in particularly offensive or antisocial ways, and gives verbal or behavioral indications of suicidal thought or planning, get help immediately.
Q: Does utilizing mental health resources decrease the likelihood of teen suicide?
A: The answer is an emphatic, "Yes!" Studies have shown that less than 1% of suicide completers were in mental health treatment programs at the time of their death, indicating the broad effectiveness of psychotherapy and psychotropic medications, used individually or in combination.
Q: Do suicide rates in the US differ by region and among different ethnic groups?
A: Teen suicide completion rates are higher in the western states than in other areas of the US, a fact assumed to be related to the higher rate of gun ownership among western state inhabitants. In the US, Whites have far and away the highest suicide completion rates, followed by Native Americans and other ethnic groups.
Q: Are teen suicide completions and attempts clustered?
A: When one teen decides that suicide is a solution to his or her pain, other teens may be influenced to follow suit. Studies have indicated that the more desperate and hopeless a particular teen community feels about its situation, the more likely members of the community are to influence each other's suicidal thinking and action.
In one Native American community in the US, a 17-year-old committed suicide by hanging himself. Within a span of 5 months after his death, his cousin and best friend took their lives in the same manner, and 41 other boys and girls of this small community attempted suicide. Other studies have indicated that approximately 5% of all successful teen suicides are "imitative" suicides. The lesson of course is to talk to your teen about an attempted or completed suicide in your community, listen to what he or she thinks about what happened and why, and take the steps that you think are necessary to protect your son or daughter, particularly removing or restricting accessibility to alcohol, firearms, and legal or illegal drugs.
In Jesse's case, presented above, it was learned that a former student of her high school had been killed in a single-car automobile accident that seemed to indicate suicide. Even though the young man no longer lived in the same town, news of his death swept the high school, and Jesse, who was already depressed about her life and her chances of getting into a good college, began to think that her life was hopeless. Suicide seemed to offer a way out.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but it is possible that if Jesse's family had been aware of teens' tendency to imitate other teens, they might have had more open conversations about how Jesse was feeling about the young man's death, defusing her suicidal ideas. They might have also taken precautions to secure drugs and other lethal means in their home.
