Increased mental health visits help stem suicide

In children/adolescents with epilepsy

The continuing uptick in suicide trends in childrenand adolescents is cause for alarm and has led to many questions about how toreverse this trend. A new study in JAMAPediatrics indicates that one potential way could be increased visitsfor mental health.¹

Investigators used a population-based case-controlstudy that used Medicaid data from 16 states. In the study, there were 910suicide cases among children and adolescents from January 1, 2009, to December31, 2013. A total of 6346 controls were matched to the suicide cases by age,sex, race, ethnicity, state, and Medicaid eligibility category.

The cohort was 72.9% male and had an average age of15.7 years at the index date. Roughly 40% of the cohort who had died by suicidehad a mental health diagnosis in the 6 months before death, compared with 17.5%of control participants. More children and adolescents who died by suicide usedservices before the index date than control participants. Researchersfound that the risk of suicide was highest among children and adolescents whohad bipolar disorder, substance use disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and EPILEPSY.They also found that more mental health visits in the 30 days before the indexdate were linked with decreased odds of suicide.

Investigators said implementing suicide screeningprotocols for children and adolescents that were tied to frequency of visits aswell as to psychiatric and epilepsy diagnoses could have a positive impact ondecreasing suicide trends in the pediatric population.

References: 

1.    FontanellaCA, Warner LA, Steelesmith D, Bridge JA, Sweeney HA, Campo JV. Clinicalprofiles and health services patterns of Medicaid-enrolled youths who died bysuicide. JAMA Pediatr. 2020;174(5):470-477.doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.0002

Source: by Miranda Hester in contemporarypediatrics.com