Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology

Suicidality in youth: risk factors, screening, assessment, and intervention Workshop Proposal

Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology 2013; 23: Supplement S52-S52
Read: 564 Published: 21 March 2021

Suicide is rapidly becoming a significant cause of worldwide mortality. Youth suicide is a major social and health problem worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, in 2004 the global mean rates of suicide in youth ages 15 to 19 were estimated to be 7.4 per 100,000, with rates being higher for males (10.5) than females (4.1). The rates varied widely, from 46.5 per 100,000 in Sri Lanka to a reported 0.02 per 100,000 in Egypt, with 13 countries (including Russia, New Zealand, the Baltic states, Kazakhstan, Norway, Canada, and Slovenia) reporting suicide rates of 1.5 times the mean or more (Wasserman, Cheng, & Jiang, 2005). In the United States (U.S.), suicide was the third leading cause of death for young people ages 10 to 24 in 2007, and suicide rates for youth ages 15 to 19 were 6.9 per 100,000. A nation-wide survey of youth in grades 9–12 in public and private schools in the U.S. found that 16% of students reported seriously considering suicide, 13% reported creating a plan, and 8% reporting trying to take their own life in the 12 months preceding the survey (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). The risk factors that have been associated with suicide in the U.S. are depression and other mental disorders, substance-abuse disorders (often in combination with other mental disorders), with more than 90 percent of people dying by suicide having these risk factors. Other risk factors include prior suicide attempt, family history of mental disorder or substance abuse, family history of suicide, family violence, including physical or sexual abuse, and firearms in the home, the method used in more than half of suicides. Turkey has not been immune from this worldwide trend. In the WHO/EURO Multicenter study of suicidal behavior, the rates of completed suicides in people over 15 years old were reported for the Ankara/Istanbul catchment area, and the rates of completed suicides were reported to be 9.9 for males and 5.6 for females (Sayil, Demirci-Ozguven 2002), significantly higher than the worldwide rates. In Turkey, completed suicides were more common among teenagers and young adults (15-24 age group), while in European countries completed suicides were more common among 40 year olds and older. We need to keep in mind that suicides might be under-reported amongst Turkish youth because of greater social and religious stigma compared to the U.S. In this workshop, we will first discuss the epidemiology and risk factors for youth suicide worldwide, in the US, and in Turkey, with an analysis of the interactive phenomenology of these risk factors. We will then review data from recent epidemiological studies examining suicidality (suicidal ideation and attempts) amongst youth from Turkey and the U.S, including one involving over 30,000 youth in Istanbul published by the presenters. The workshop will then shift focus to suicide screening in risk populations of youth and its potential benefits. We will then present and provide brief interactive training (including vignettes) on the use of one of the best evidence-based tools for suicide screening, the Columbia Suicide Severity Ratting Scale (Posner & et al, 2011). We will provide data on its predictive validity and reliability, including the use by one of the presenters (AJP) in the general hospital setting in two institutions. Finally, we will present practical clinical approaches for the clinical evaluation of suicidality and effective approaches to intervention and follow-up treatment.
 

EISSN 2475-0581