Suicide in Children and Adolescents: The epidemiology of youth suicide

This chapter reviews three major sources of data that are used to derive the epidemiology of completed suicide in children and adolescents – official mortality statistics, the psychological autopsy literature, and general population epidemiologic surveys of nonlethal suicidal behavior. A presentation of the rates and patterns of completed and attempted suicide will be followed by a discussion of the risk factors for youth suicide. This information on the epidemiology of youth completed and attempted suicide can be applied to planning of services, the drawing of causal inferences or the identification of developmental phenomena.

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