Mental health professionals need to be watchful of mental health problems beyond depression in order to prevent youth suicide, according to new research from the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO researchers examine which mental disorders or combinations of disorders may be most responsible for youth suicide in a new study being released in the October issue of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Researchers from the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland and from the Christchurch School of Medicine in New Zealand reviewed the English language research from 1982 to 2001 to re-examine the occurrence and distribution of mental disorders in 894 cases of completed suicides among young people worldwide. The majority of the cases (89 percent) had at least one diagnosis of a mental disorder. Mood disorders were the most frequently diagnosed (42 percent) followed by substance-related disorders (40 percent) and then disruptive disorders (20 percent).
Mood disorders include major and minor depressive disorder, dysthymia, mania, hypomania, bipolar disorder and non-specific mood disorders. Substance-related disorders include drug abuse and alcohol dependency/abuse. Disruptive disorders include conduct disorder, attention deficit disorder, oppositional disorder and identity disorder.