(Arti Patel/ Global News) — A lot more children and teens are going to the hospital with suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, a new study suggests.
Published in JAMA Pediatrics earlier this week, researchers found these rates had doubled between 2007 and 2015.
Speaking with CNN, Dr. Brett Burstein, lead study author and a pediatric emergency room physician at Montreal Children’s Hospital of McGill University Health Centre, said the numbers were “alarming.”
“It also represents a larger percentage of all pediatric emergency department visits. Where suicidal behaviour among the pediatric population was just two per cent of all visits, that’s now up to 3.5 per cent,” he said. (…)