InvestigationThe latest data shows that the increase in suicidal gestures continues in 2022 among minors, mainly among girls. A situation that is all the more worrying as the supply of care is saturated. Throughout France, child health professionals are calling for collective mobilization.
This is a cry of alarm from childhood professionals, in the face of suicide attempts by young people, which have been increasing since the end of 2020, the increase still continuing today. Throughout France, everyone is calling for a collective leap.
“Emergencies for suicidal gesture, suicidal thoughts and mood disorders remain at high levels, comparable (for 11-14 year olds) or even higher (for 15-17 year olds and 18-24 year olds) to those observed at the start of 2021” , indicates Public Health France (SPF) in his latest mental health newsletter in early April. The ratio is five girls for one boy. “All the age groups among young people are very above in 2022, it’s edifying”, comments Charles-Edouard Notredame, psychiatrist at the University Hospital of Lille.
Between the 1D and the 11and week of 2022, specifies SPF, 6,418 visits to the emergency room for suicidal gestures were recorded (i.e. + 27% compared to the same period of 2021). Over the whole of 2021, this number was 23,791, compared to 17,333 in 2020 (the average being 19,586 for the years 2018-2019). Visits to the emergency room for suicidal thoughts have continued to increase since 2018-2019 (annual average of 4,246). Their number is 5,210 in 2020, 9,003 in 2021, and 2,992 for the first eleven weeks of 2022.
Other data, “while it has dropped in all age groups during the first months of the pandemic (except among the elderly), there was then a significant increase in the number of adolescents hospitalized for attempted suicide [TS] with a 27% increase from the end of 2020 compared to 2019, young girls being also very mainly concernedexplains Fabrice Jollant, psychiatrist and researcher (University of Paris Cité). It is very obvious and very frank, and this high level continues”.
As for the calls to the eight poison control centers (CAP) for voluntary taking of drugs or other toxic substances, “This year, they are almost twice as numerous concerning 12-24 year olds, with around thirty-five calls per day on average, compared to around twenty in 2019, women being more affected”adds Dominique Vodovar, doctor at the CAP of the Lariboisière hospital (Public Assistance-Hospitals of Paris, AP-HP).
Red signals
let’s remember that suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds, behind road accidents, around the world. In France, it causes between 300 and 350 deaths of young people per year in this age group, including three times more boys than girls, the latest figures available dating from 2017. In addition, the number of suicides had been decreasing for several years. in adults, men and women.
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