Suicide Prevention: A Pediatrician's Guide to Building Resilience Episode

So today we are tackling a more difficult topic, and that is suicidality.

Vivian, why don't you open this topic for us?

Yeah, so my vision for this discussion, which I think is so important for all parents, is based on the fact that you and I as pediatricians, we get training regarding discussing suicidality, understanding risk factors amongst all of our preteen and teenage patients, right? And I just thought this is such an important topic for all parents.

I wanna be clear.

I wanna talk today about general principles of suicide prevention and preventing risk of suicide for all children.

This is not an episode that is designed to counsel parents about a child that is suicidal.

If that is the case, it is so important to be seeking professional help, and that would be a much different discussion.

This is gonna take a step back from that, almost like preventative discussion of just being aware of suicidality and the risks of that, and what we can be doing as parents, even in our younger children, to try to instill that open communication and resilience which may protect them from suicidality later as they go into those turbulent preteen and teen times.

So I think the first thing we need to do-

Mm-hmm

... all of us need to understand the problem.

So obviously, we know that preteens and teens amongst youth are at a increased risk of suicide.

It's a turbulent time.

There's a lot of things that are going on emotionally.

And, you know, sadly, in that age group, suicide is the second leading cause of death, accidents being the first.

But suicide is the second after that.

And for children that die in that age group, over 25% die from suicide.

Also, I think a lot of us are aware that around 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry declared a national emergency which was related to child and adolescent mental health.

And so th- this should be very sobering to all of us, right? Over the past 10 to 15 years or so, we have seen the rates ticking up or rising in both boys and girls.

I will say it is important to note that boys are more likely in this age group to follow through with suicide than girls.

However, both groups, just by the factor of their age, are at increased risk.

So in the office, we definitely screen all adolescents for mental health problems and suicide risk.

And in our office, those screening tools are usually a series of survey questions.

And we're very intentional in trying to administer these surveys so the child fills them out privately.

And through these screening tools, it kind of is a springboard for pediatricians to begin the conversation about mental health and assessing suicidality risk.