Experts say pediatricians should ask if teens have been bullied online or face to face.
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The report, titled “Suicide and Suicide Attempts in Adolescents”, updates an American Academy of Pediatrics report from 2007, when suicide was the third-leading cause of death for people age 15 to 19. For instance, the AAP report found that teenagers who use the internet for more than five hours a day are more likely to experience increased suicidal thoughts and depression.
In the report, the AAP urges pediatricians to look for those risk factors by screening their adolescent patients. “Cyberbullying, for example, is as serious a problem as face-to-face bullying”, he said. It’s the 10th leading cause of deaths in the United States, according to the Centers For Disease and Control Prevention.
For 24/7 emotional support, contact The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The report states that doctors should work hard to create and maintain working relationships with the families and colleagues in their patients’ communities in order to ensure an adequate communication that can allow continuity through the process of overcoming the situation. Dr. Shain, lead author of the clinical report, is the former liaison from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to the AAP Committee on Adolescence. But teenage boys are three times more likely to die from attempting suicide because they use more fatal means like firearms. Additional training should be considered in terms of early diagnose and treatment of teens who have mood disorders. Discussions in these forums may be anonymous and not particularly supportive, at times even encouraging suicide attempts by susceptible individuals. It can be used to seek help to overcome difficulties but it can also be used to do harm to other people.
Other online factors include cyber-bulling and learning of another’s suicide online. They found a “pathological” level of internet use could indicate higher levels of depression, and the likelihood of completing suicides, though in some cases the internet could help teens feel more accepted. Such information is available through online news sites (44%), social networking sites (25%), online discussion forums (15%) and video websites (15%). In 2004, “black box” warning labels were added to antidepressants, warning that they increase risk of suicidal thinking and behavior among children and adolescents. LGBT youth have double the incidence of suicidal thoughts. Their use was not prohibited, but the FDA called on clinicians to balance increased risk of suicidality with clinical need and to monitor kids closely “for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior”.
However, the latest evidence has shown that the risk of suicide is higher when vulnerable patients are not prescribed antidepressant medication. Still, the FDA has not changed the black-box warning rule despite the most recent findings.
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The report encouraged pediatricians to consider risk factors linked to teen suicide.
