Solomon's Edge: The Cause Of Suicide

In American society there are children and adolescents who commit suicide and it has become a major concern. According to the world health organization, suicide is the second or third cause of death among young people in many countries worldwide among those 10 to 14 years old and the second leading cause of death among 15 to 24 years old, stated from CDC/NCHS in 2011. Suicide must be prevented. There are three articles that show us the study of how school programs and connectedness can prevent suicide from occurring. Article one called “Connectedness and Suicide prevention in Adolescents: Pathways and Implication” by the Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior from the American Association of Suicidology. Article two “Preventing Child Suicide: The Elementary School Death Education Puppet Show” by G.R. Bernhardt and Susan G. Praeger. Article three “Suicide prevention in adolescents: a controlled study of the effectiveness of a school-based psycho-educational program” by Gwendolyn Portzky and Kees Heeringen.

In the United States, suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 10 to 14-year-olds (CDC, 2015) and for 15 to 19-year-olds (Friedman, 2008). In 2013, 17.0% of students grades 9 to 12 in the United States seriously thought about committing suicide; 13.6% made a suicide plan; 8.0% attempted suicide; and 2.7% attempted suicide in which required medical attention (CDC, 2015). These alarming statistics show that there is something wrong with the way suicide is handled in today’s society. In order to alleviate the devastating consequences of teenage suicide, it is important to get at the root of what causes it all: mental illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (2013), mental illness is the imbalance of thinking, state of mind, and mood. Approximately 90% of all suicides are committed by people with mental illnesses (NAMI, n.d.). This shows that there is a correlation between mental illness and suicide. If mental illnesses are not treated, deadly consequences could occur. It would make sense that if there is a correlation between mental illness and suicide across all ages, the same should be thought for adolescents. Approximately 21% of all teenagers have a treatable mental illness (Friedman, 2008), although 60% do not receive the help that they need (Horowitz, Ballard, & Pao, 2009). If mental illnesses are not found and treated in teenagers, some of them may pay the ultimate price.

Suicide affects and destroys many families and takes too many lives each year. Despite it being somewhat of a taboo topic, it is important to be aware of the consequences of suicide and what is being done to prevent it. Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States and took nearly 45,000 deaths last year. For every suicide death, there are roughly 25 suicide attempts. (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2017). In the past few years, there has been a rise in suicide prevention programs. Programs are being implemented into schools and universities and offered at community centers as well. Suicide prevention is a major public health priority, as recognized by the Prioritized Research Agenda for Suicide Prevention,

Suicide is a controversial topic in today’s society, as some individuals believe it causes no effect on other individuals. This statement, however, is false because not only will it affect your family but it effects your colleagues, friends, and even old classmates. One of the hardest things that a community can face is the loss of a young person’s life, as it effects everyone in the community. This death can lead to multiple community members feeling guilty, not only for not having prevented the suicide, but also due to distress, anger, and confusion. More specifically, in regards to family members, it can lead to mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, divorce, and are at higher risk to commit suicide themselves (Tracy, 2016, para. 3,4,5,6,7,8,9). The distress not only will have short term effects but it will

The United States takes the eleventh spot in the top fifteen causes of death because of suicide. For our youth suicide is the third leading cause of death. In today’s society suicide in our youth is becoming a huge issue. Recently, youth suicide in Delaware has been a concerning topic. With the many suicides that have been taking place; we ask ourselves why is this happening to Delaware’s youth? It’s quite sad reading of all the lives taken at such young ages. It’s still questionable on the real reasons why so much of our youth want to cut their life short. There are numbers of things on why possibly our youth would want to commit suicide. There is one reason that has been proven to be the head cause and that is mental illness. A mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions and disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness includes depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors. (Staff, 2012) Some other causes may be bullying, drug and alcohol abuse and physical and sexual abuse. Youth that die by suicide believes that suicide is the only option at that moment; however Delaware has several resources available to prevent youth suicide.

The next educational effort would be the students at all schools with the focus on “health risks and nutrition and knowing what suicide looks like” in your friends or family. During education, the health maintenance and grief resource center would be initiated with location information given to all clinics, dentists, mental health counselors, schools, local hospitals, and churches. This approach to community assessment allows the PHN the understanding of historical trauma, sociocultural, and economic contexts and meaning to create partnerships with individuals, families, groups and communities promoting improved overall health and mental health (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2016). The focus of this program would center around Lake County Montana with adolescent and younger children at the forefront. Outreach, follow-up, and counseling is an impediment to improvement and stabilization for the mental health individual, which could be a risk factor for suicide and other health-related concerns. To assist with this goal, a grant will be required to cover financial needs. For example, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Research Grants awards monies from 30,000 to 1.5 million for suicide prevention, in 2015 they awarded 17 grantees for studies and programs to prevent suicide (afsp.org). These dollars will assist

The founders of the organization brought individuals who have experienced the loss of a loved one together, in efforts to educate and promote the awareness of suicide. Most witnesses of suicide do not understand the reasoning behind it. Individuals are in search of support, but also dedicated to understanding the line of why death was the only resolution. Common questions include what the person in pain must have contemplated mentally, and if it was possible that the incident could have been prevented. While the founders all individually tried to cope with their losses, they then noticed that there were actually more families going through the same tough situation. Getting together for support and hoping to find some answers to the why- question, they found that there was a need for suicide research and education. The struggling families then, are the roots of the Foundation’s aim now; to understand and prevent suicide through experience and funded research.

The structure of our program is to work with school sites in order to train a core group of students on how to identify the risk factors and warning signs of suicide. The goal is for the students to ultimately be a link to a trusted adult or resource on campus for a student who may be contemplating suicide. Once students are trained we work with them to create schoolwide campaigns which focus on raising awareness to help resources that are always available when needed.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 2015, suicide is the second leading cause of death in the adolescent population in this country and the number of occurrences continues to rise at a dramatic rate. For every teen that completes a suicide, 100 make an attempt, making suicide a paramount public health issue that needs to be addressed. Statistics show that since 2009, the rates of attempted and completed suicide, in this age group continue to steadily increase (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2015; Taliaferro, Oberstar, & Wagman-Borowsky, 2012).

“For youth between the ages of 10 and 24, suicide is the third leading cause of death, approximately 4600 lives lost each year. Of the reported suicides in the 10 to 24 age group, 81% of the deaths were males and 19% were females. The top three methods used in suicides of young people include firearm (45%), suffocation (40%), and poisoning (8%)” (CDC, 2015). The school is not an easy step to take, and a lot of students suffer from anxiety attacks caused by stress and depression. Sadly, these students usually don’t seek help or maybe they just simply don’t know where to go for the help. “The costs of suicidal behaviors and the savings that can result from preventing these behaviors can help convince policymakers and other stakeholders that suicide prevention is an investment that will save dollars as well as lives” (SPRC, 2015).

Goldsmith, S.K., Pellmar, T.C., Kleinman, A.M., Bunney, W.E. (2002). Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative. (pp 331-374). National Academies Press.

Throughout their education, children sit through countless bullying and sex education programs, but suicide, the third leading cause of adolescent deaths (Caine 1), is practically ignored. Many schools only offer hot lines for suicidal students. While some schools have implemented suicide prevention programs and the government has recognized teenage suicide as a growing problem, effective solutions need to be discovered and funded to prevent these catastrophic deaths. The U.S. federal government should develop and fund suicide prevention programs in high schools, while focusing on strategies ranging from coping mechanisms to drug intervention and screening methods.

As people can tell, there are many different interventions methods for people considering suicide, but does not mean that each of those interventions are the best. Suicide intervention and prevention programs that are school based are difficult to determine the effectiveness because of the lack of evidence. Research has noted that there are some reasons as to why school based suicide intervention does work. Those reasons were provided in a table from an article by Balaguru, Sharma, and Waheed. Balaguru, Sharma, and Waheed ( 20102, p 134) discovered that school based programs can be effective because they involve parents in the process, addresses the risk factor of drinking alcohol and how it correlates with suicide, improves problem solving

Day to day, teens suffer from peer pressure, problem from home, and stress from academics. Despise their status in the environment, majority of high school students refrain from acknowledging the presence of their reality. The problem in most situations in that students feel shut in, trapped in a never ending misery. How do they cope? What are their ways of dealing? Most students live in denial. Others have friends to confide in. For the devastating part, most students are not as open to these ideas and it leaves them with this alternative: suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause in teens the ages 14 to 19 within rural underserved areas. Suicidal ideation (SI), suicidal thoughts, were surveyed in over 12 high schools and it was found that in the past year, thoughts of (SI) were not shared with peers or even adults in the pursuit of receiving help or support (Pisani, 2012). Because a student spends most of their day at school, it is ideal for schools to provide realistic opportunities and school-based programs to assist with the suicide among the youth. The Surviving the Teens Suicide Prevention and Depression Awareness Program designed four 50 minute session or each high school student. This presented information in regards to factual information about depression, suicidal warning signs, suicidal risk factors and myths associated with suicide (King, 2010). The program provide coping strategies for everyday life, referral sources if feeling suicidal, and how to recognize

Teen suicide is something that is endless, it will never stop but if everyone was educated on it, it could help prevent deaths. I think with people provided with statistics and further information can help avoid adolescent suicide attempts. I think most teen suicide cases could be prevent if we knew the signs to look for and the ways to stop it. I believe parents would feel safer if they knew knowledge on the issue and how to handle it. The intended audiences for this essay is parents or friends of suicidal teens. This essay is important because, as mentioned earlier, we need to be educated on suicide to end tons of tragedies. It is also important to be aware of the warning signs to help prevent. This essay is relevant because teen suicide is a war that happens daily, and will continue to happen, until we take control of the situation and do something to stop it. If family members were informed of the cause and symptoms leading up to the attempt of suicide, then there is less likely that teenagers would try and commit