Nearly a third of children and adolescents screened in an emergency
department program are at risk for suicide, and of these, 17% report
knowledge of a gun in or around their home.
"Nearly half of youth suicides involve firearms, and 90% of
individuals who attempt suicide with guns kill themselves," said study
author Stephen Teach, MD, from the Children's National Medical
Center in Washington, DC.
Suicide is among the leading causes of death in young people aged 10 to 24 years.
Researchers say the emergency department may be an excellent
screening opportunity to assess teens for suicide risk because this is
sometimes the only consistent source of medical care for young
people.
"This is particularly true for the most disadvantaged adolescents in
our nation," said Dr. Teach, explaining the rationale for his program
here at the Pediatric Academic Societies 2013 Annual Meeting.
Dr. Teach and his team developed a simple instrument based on the
gold standard, the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire. They distilled the
questionnaire down to its most critical elements.
"It's a fairly simple thing to administer in the hurly burly of a
busy emergency department," Dr. Teach said. The Ask Suicide-Screening
Questions has only 4 points:
1. In the past few weeks, have you wished you were dead?
2. In the past few weeks, have you felt that you or your family would be better off if you were dead?
3. In the past week, have you been having thoughts about killing yourself?
4. Have you ever tried to kill yourself?
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