Science / Medicine : Study Upsets Suicide Notions

Results of a new study of suicidal teen-agers clash with the popular notion that youths often brood for weeks and give indirect clues before killing themselves, a psychiatrist reported last week.

“That was very, very rare” in the teen-agers studied, said Dr. David Shaffer, a teen suicide expert at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, which is affiliated with Columbia University.

Instead, the teen-agers most commonly had a long history of aggressive and impulsive behavior, oversensitivity and suspicion, he said.

“They were aggressive to others for years, and finally they were aggressive to themselves,” Shaffer said.

Their most common trigger for suicide was getting in trouble at school, or with the police or the family, but not knowing what the consequences would be, Shaffer said.

He spoke at a session of the American Psychiatric Assn.’s annual meeting. Results of the research are still being analyzed, he said.

The study focused on suicides of people aged 11 to 19 in the New York metropolitan area over two years. Of the 181 suicides, 142, or 78%, were committed by males, Shaffer said.

Shaffer said half the males had shown antisocial or aggressive behavior, while only about 14% could have been diagnosed with major depression.

About half the females showed depression alone or with antisocial behavior, he said.

The study also found that about half the teen-agers who killed themselves had a close relative or grandparent who had attempted or succeeded at suicide.