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Teen Suicide
The brutal
finality, unfairness and unpredictability of the occurrence, as well as
the undeniable reality and prevalence of teen suicide merits closer
scrutiny. Young people’s desperate act of crying out for help,
ending their own life as their only resort and last way out, makes us
stop and re-think the way we work with and serve our teens and youth.
Teen suicide rates and statistics are undeniably telling us that they
need support, recognition, respect, and hope for the future.
Recent teen suicide statistics are shocking and staggering to say the least – here are a few quoted recently by the Canadian Institute of Child Health: (i) the teen suicide death rate is increasing: teenage men four-fold from 5.3 to 23.0 per 100,000 between 1960 and 1991, young women from 0.9 to 4 per 100,000. The teen rate of suicide for youth 10 to 14 years of age almost doubled over the last 30 years from 0.6 per 100,000 to 2.4 per 100,000. In 1990, teen suicide was the second leading cause of death for both teenage men and women. (ii) Teenage women are hospitalized for attempted suicide at twice the rate for young men, with girls aged 10-14 admitted to hospital at a rate five times that of boys and the second leading cause for hospitalization for young women aged 15 to 19 is attempted suicide. (iii) the rate of suicide for young men is six times greater than for young women. (iv) Young girls are more likely to attempt suicide than young boys. (v) 10% of young girls and 4% of young boys 12 to 14 years of age had considered suicide in the 6 months (vi) 20% of grade 8 girls and 13% of grade 8 boys had considered suicide in the past year. What is going wrong? How can we step in and take an active role in teen suicide prevention? Teen suicide prevention strategies need to (1) enhance the recognition of suicidal youth and their referral to existing mental health resources, and (2) strategies should be designed to directly address known or suspected risk factors for youth suicide. There are many indications that youth are having problems within relationships and coping skills.. Fifty-three percent of young women and 37% of young men rate their lives as stressful. According to several national and provincial surveys, a substantial number of young people are lonely, depressed, emotionally distressed or not happy about their lives. Forty-three percent of young women 12 to 18 years of age state that they feel really depressed once a month compared to 23% of young men. According to a 1990 national survey, approximately 38% of young people 13 to 16 years of age reported that they felt good about themselves. Young women were less likely to feel good about themselves, 30% compared to 45% of young men. Exact figures are not available regarding the number of young people who live on the streets. According to one study, more than 60% of young people living on the streets in Canada leave home because of violence and abuse; on the street this violence continues. Approximately 33% of boys 13 to 16 years reported that they felt self confident compared to 22% of young girls. |
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