Visits for Suicide Ideation, Attempts More Than Doubled at U.S. Children ’s Hospitals Since 2008

Surveillance studies have reported that the number of suicide ideation and suicide attempts have been increasing among children in the United States over the last decade. Astudy published inPediatrics now shows that from 2008 to 2015 emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations for suicide ideation/attempts more than doubled at U.S. children ’s hospitals and accounted for an increasing percentage of all children’s hospital encounters.“Our findings that ED and inpatient children’s hospital encounters for SI [suicide ideation] or SA [suicide attempts] have increased over the past decade underscore the increasing impact of mental health disorders in youth on children’s hospital services,” wrote Gregory Plemmons, M.D., of Mo nroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and colleagues. “Recognition of this increasing burden on children’s hospitals is paramount in helping to inform future strategies for suicide prevention and treatment and to ensure that interventions to reverse this concerning trend continue t o reach the individuals at highest risk.”Plemmons and colleagues used the Pediatric Health Information System database —which contains clinical and billing data from 49 children’s hospitals in the United States—to collect information on ED visits and hospitalizations for suicide ideation/attempts by children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 between 2008 and 2015.During the study period, the investigators identified 115,856 encounters for s...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: children children's hospitals Gregory Plemmons Pediatric Health Information System database pediatrics suicide suicide attempt suicide ideation youth Source Type: research