Durban - South African children face an increasing risk of suicide as the tragedy, especially among teenagers, increases dramatically worldwide.
This was the stark warning from leading mental health experts speaking in Durban recently.
They also cautioned against parents dismissing warning signs from their children as being manipulation or a cry for attention.
Durban hosted the 21st Congress of the International Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions.
Professor Paramjit Joshi, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and professor of psychiatry, behavioural sciences and paediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine, said suicide among teenagers was increasing dramatically.
“In 2007 approximately 1 million people died from suicide world wide. There is one death every 40 seconds and one attempt every three seconds. The incidence has tripled for adolescents over the past 30 years,” Joshi said.
Joshi said research showed that suicide was the third leading cause of death in 15- to 19-year-olds and the fourth leading cause of death in 10- to 14-year-olds in the US, with more boys than girls succeeding in killing themselves. However, more girls than boys attempted suicide. There was a higher rate of suicide among gay and lesbian adolescents.
Enver Karim, a psychiatrist and lecturer in the department of psychiatry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said suicide was a growing problem in South Africa.
“South African statistics indicate that of the 3 125 reported suicides in 2008, which are the latest available figures, 245 (7.8 percent) were aged between 10 and 19 years. Suicide is not a rare occurrence in this age group,” Karim said.
Karim said his research with Naseema Vawda of the department of behavioural medicine at UKZN had reviewed all cases where children under 18 years old, had been admitted to a Durban government hospital between 2008 and 2012, to understand socio-demographic factors, methods used to attempt suicide, symptoms and risk factors.
Of 555 patients under 18 seen by the hospital’s psychiatry and psychology departments, 74 had attempted suicide, of these 57 were girls and 17 were boys.
“The findings indicate that over a five-year period an average of 13.3 percent of under 18 referrals occurred following admission for a suicide attempt,” Karim said.
Karim said the method mostly used was to take over-the-counter medication, followed by hanging, cutting and jumping. He said 29.7 percent of the children had suffered the loss of one or both of their parents, while 16.2 percent had reported abuse and 14.9 percent had engaged in substance abuse such as alcohol and cigarettes.
He said the major reasons reported for suicide attempts were “conflict with family and a perceived lack of support from family”. A family history of suicide and suicide attempts was also reported in a significant number of patients, he said.
Karim said it was a concern that 37.8 percent had reported between 1 and 6 previous suicide attempts. “Of those reporting previous attempts only 32 percent had been seen by a mental health care practitioner following the attempts,” he said. Karim said suicide was a serious problem in the country.
“I think it is a problem we are going to experience more as we are losing a lot more parents (due to the HIV/Aids epidemic) and the burden of care falls on extended family and grandparents and as a result, the potential for family conflict is a lot more,” Karim said.
Karim said caregivers should take children reporting suicidal thoughts far more seriously.
“Some of these kids have attempted suicide up to six times and the parents are the drivers between whether the children get treatment or not. If parents don’t recognise it is a problem and they don’t take it seriously, then they simply do not get brought in for treatment,” Karim said.
“There needs to be a greater awareness among parents that kids do want to attempt and do commit suicide and they need to be more aware of the need for treatment when kids start to express these kinds of things,” he said.
Helmer Larsen, associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Copenhagen, said research there that had surveyed 3 931 teenagers at 122 schools. It showed risk factors for forming ideas about suicide among teenagers were highest among girls who had been sexually abused and girls who felt they could not confide in their mother when they had problems, followed by peer problems, anxiety symptoms and ADHD symptoms.
“Of the 219 depressed adolescents, 66 percent reported suicidal ideation and self injury during the past week,” Larsen said.
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