The study, which began in 2016 and was published in Pediatrics Nov. 28, notes that while the number of cases increased as a result of the pandemic, emergency room visits for suicidal thoughts had been on the rise prior to COVID-19. It reviewed cases of children ages 5 to 19 in Illinois who visited an emergency room help for for suicide between January 2016 and June 2021.
In the duration of the study there were 81,051 visits that were coded for suicidal ideation. Twenty-five percent of those patients then stayed in the hospital. Hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts rose 57 percent between 2019 and 2020, according to researchers.
The study found the visits increased by nearly 60 percent from 2016 to 2017 and 2019 to 2021. Cases with suicidal ideation as the principal diagnosis jumped from 34.6 percent to 44.3 percent during this period as well.
“We saw more kids than we typically do that we … wouldn’t necessarily have thought would have problems about suicidal ideation. We saw 5-year-olds,” Audrey Brewer, MD, co-author of the study, attending physician in advanced general pediatrics and primary care at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and a researcher in the department of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told the news outlet. “To see them presenting to emergency departments for mental health or for suicide-ideation-related visits is very concerning.”
Dr. Brewer told WTTW that the study could not determine the exact reason for the increase in cases, but that many included in the study had depression, anxiety and substance use issues.
