Substance Abuse and Suicide Risk Among Adolescents
Adolescents are at high risk for suicidal ideations, behaviors, attempts, and suicide.
Adolescent needs for independence, identity formation, and peer acceptance increase risk-taking behavior.
Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among people aged 15-24.
Suicide is the main reason for referrals for child and adolescent emergency psychiatric services.
There has been a steady increase in adolescent drug abuse in the United States since 1960.
Substance abuse has been proposed as a risk factor for suicidal behavior.
The study examined whether there was an association between drug abuse and suicidal behavior and whether drug abuse was specifically a risk factor for suicide.
The data collection process was a literature review conducted by two people independtly examining peer reviewed articles for relevancy and other factors, such as language, leaving 17 articles for examination. The results were then extracted and presented in a table along with an opinion of the study.
The research demonstrated some relationship between alcohol use and suicidal behavior.
Alcohol misuse seems to be associated with symptoms of depression, which are then associated with suicidal behavior, but the review did not discuss whether the results were compared to control groups of people with depression who had not attempted suicide.
Early alcohol use was associated with suicidality.
There was a relationship between the use of some other substances and suicidality.
The positive relationship between cannabis use and suicidality seems linked to confounding factors.
The starting age for heroin use has a greater impact on suicidality than the fact of that the person is an opoid user.
Cocaine usage seems linked to suicidal behaviors, especially when combined with other substances.
Drug misuse rather than use is predictive of suicidality.
Experts disagree about the role that substance use plays in promoting suicidal behaviors and how it may interact with any pre-existing mood disorders and stressful life events that the teenager experiences.
Future researchers and practical medical intervention practitioners both need to focus on assessing multiple factors simultaneously, including: frequency of drug use, environmental stressors, comorbid psychopathologies, and access to lethal weapons.
References
Pompili, M., Serafini, G., Innamorati, M., Biondi, M., Siracusano, A., Di Giannantonio, M.,
Giupponi, G., Amore, M., Lester, D., Girardi, P., Moller-Leimkuhler, A.M. (2012). Substance abuse and suicide risk among adolescents. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci, 262, 469-485. doi: 10.1007/s00406-012-0292-0.
His article does an excellent job of discussing in comprehensible terms the recent research which has addressed the current state of knowledge about the relationship between substance abuse amongst teens and mood disorders and provides a breakdown of possible treatment options. Flaherty, L., & Flaherty, M. (2005). Adolescent psychiatry: The annals of the American society for adolescent psychiatry (Vol. 29). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Analytic Press. This resource is from a special
Adolescent Substance Use Screening Instruments: 10-Year Critical Review of the Research Literature Over ten million teenagers in the United States admit in a national survey that they drink alcohol, although it is illegal under the age of 21 in all states. In some studies, nearly one-quarter of school-age children both smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol. Over four thousand adolescents every day try marijuana for the first time. The dangers of use,
For some, there will be a denial and minimization of the substance habit as being inconsequential, purely recreational or extremely intermittent. This response is akin to the young adult asserting that there is no problem. For other homeless youths, their drug or alcohol habit maybe viewed as a form of survival: these drugs help these teenagers bear life on the street. In that sense the substance is attributed as
801). According to Green (2006), "Research on how gender influences substance use and substance-abuse-related problems has established clear differences between women and men in several important areas. Women typically consume less alcohol than men when they drink, drink alcohol less frequently, and are less likely to develop alcohol-related problems than men. Similarly, women are less likely than men to use illicit drugs and to develop drug-related problems" (p. 55). Relationship
The inclusion of alcohol and drug education is a vital component of most drug and alcohol abuse interventions, for both the users and non-user. (Montagne et al., 1992). This education can be offered as a preventive measure to beginners of abuse of substances of to the vulnerable group to save the future generations from the menace and the whole society from the drug's association with crime. Alternatively, it should be
Indeed, the lack of "recognition and protection" by schools in general contributes to the "critically high level of suicide" among this community of minority students (146). Surely alert, competent, contemporarily up-to-date school counselors understand that they have the "daunting but imperative obligation to become social activists for gay, lesbian, and bisexual students" since these students are the most "stigmatized members of school environs," Stone continues. There is no doubt that
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