Particularly alarming: a sharp increase in suicides — a 200% increase, in fact — among girls ages 10 to 14, with the steepest rate of rise after 2006. The numbers have many experts wondering what is going on.
He points out that there is a range of factors that put children — boys and girls —at risk for suicide. These include substance use disorders and prior attempts to harm themselves. But one of the biggest risk factors is depression.
According to theAmerican Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, there are roughly 8,300 trained physicians for approximately 15 million children in need of their expert help.
That’s woefully inadequate.
One result of the extreme scarcity in pediatric and adolescent psychiatrists is that depression is widely diagnosed and treated by primary care physicians. Most primary care doctors (pediatricians, internists, and family doctors) do not receive formal training in diagnosing and treating psychiatric disorders, including when and how to prescribe antidepressants, and yet they are on the front lines in doing just that. As a primary care doctor, I can tell you from my own experience that this is very true.
Other factors that contribute to suicide in girls
One of these is the “online life” of children — including social media with its relatively new phenomenon of cyberbullying. According to Dr. Beresin, “This is potentially dangerous. We don’t yet have the data on cyberbullying and suicides, but, in my opinion, cyberbullying may be a major factor in the suicide rates, particularly in young girls. Girls are the best at verbal bullying, very vicious. Boys tend to be physical, girls tend to be emotional. I’m not against social media at all, there are good things about it, but when a kid is cyberbullied, the ‘abuse’ can spread quickly and widely. Rumors that might have been contained to the high school can spread quickly and easily to a much, much larger population. The shame and humiliation can be devastating. So, the high rates of suicides in girls 10-14 may reflect a greater impact of social media cyberbullying among girls than boys. This is not a definite, but it needs to be considered and studied.” What might surprise people is that both the kids who do the bullying as well as their targets are at greater risk for suicide, andcyberbullying appears particularly dangerous.
“Copycat suicide in adolescents is a fact. The data suggest that when suicides are reported in the news and glamorized and sensationalized, there is a well-documented two-week window during which there is a ‘burst’ of suicides,” says Dr. Beresin. Considerable research from countries around the world shows that this two-week window of copycat suicides is a real phenomenon. Finally, in general, access to firearms increases the chances of death by suicide.