Blog Archives

Bullying, Excessive Internet Use Put Teens at Increased Suicide Risk, Study Finds

6/29/2016

Being bullied or spending an excessive amount of time on the internet could increase the risk of teen suicides, according to a new study released by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Though the overall suicide rate among teens has decreased since 1990, it was still worryingly high in 2013 -- 1,748 per 100,000 teens between the ages of 15 and 19 -- meaning suicide is the second-leading cause of death for teens, according to the study.

In addition, boys were more likely to die by suicide but girls were nearly twice as likely to attempt suicide, the study found.

And while suicide affects all racial groups, American Indian/Alaska Native males had the highest suicide rate and black females have the lowest rate of suicide, according to the study.

Read Full Article
By Gillian Mohney, ABC News

0 Comments

1 in 13 Young U.S. Adults Considered Suicide

6/24/2016

0 Comments

About one in 13 young adults in the United States had serious thoughts of suicide in 2013-2014, federal officials reported Thursday.

That rate of 7.4 percent translates into 2.6 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 25, researchers said.

"Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young adults, and it is preventable," said Kana Enomoto. She's principal deputy administrator at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which released the report.

"We need to reach out to young people with the message that help is at hand, and promote effective programs for saving lives by treating people at risk whenever and wherever they need it," Enomoto added in an agency news release.

Read Full Article
By E.J. Mundell, HealthDay, CBS News

0 Comments

As Suicide Rates Rise, Scientists Find New Warning Signs

6/10/2016

0 Comments

Scientists are making headway in the search for solutions to one of the most vexing problems in mental health: How to predict who is at risk for suicide.

Researchers are hunting for so-called biomarkers, such as patterns of brain activity on fMRI scans or levels of stress hormones in the blood, linked to suicidal thoughts and acts. They are creating computer algorithms, fed with tens of thousands of pieces of data, to come up with measures of risk. They are looking at sleep patterns and even responses to specialized computer tasks that can reveal unconscious biases toward self-harm.

The need is great. The reality is that it is very hard for psychiatrists and psychologists to identify who is at risk for suicide. They rely heavily on simply asking patients.

But people often conceal their plans. Indeed, researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital found that clinicians were no more accurate than chancein predicting which patients visiting a psychiatric emergency room were likely to attempt suicide in the next six months.
Widely accepted risk factors, like being male, having a history of mental illness and experiencing stressors like a job or relationship loss, are often not specific enough to be much help.

Read Full Article
By Andrea Petersen, The Wall Street Journal

0 Comments

Bullying, Excessive Internet Use Put Teens at Increased Suicide Risk, Study Finds

1 in 13 Young U.S. Adults Considered Suicide

As Suicide Rates Rise, Scientists Find New Warning Signs

Author

Categories

Archives

Bullying, Excessive Internet Use Put Teens at Increased Suicide Risk, Study Finds﻿

1 in 13 Young U.S. Adults Considered Suicide

As Suicide Rates Rise, Scientists Find New Warning Signs

Author

Categories

Archives

Bullying, Excessive Internet Use Put Teens at Increased Suicide Risk, Study Finds