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ANN ARBOR, Mich. - The suicide rate among American adolescents has rose drastically over the last decade, but many at-risk youths aren t receiving the mental health services they need.
In fact, one of the greatest challenges is identifying the young people who need the most help.
Now, researchers have developed a personalized system to better detect suicidal youths. The novel, universal screening tool helps caregivers reliably predict an adolescent s suicide risk - alerting them to which ones need follow-up interventions - according to Michigan Medicine-led findings published in
JAMA Psychiatry. Too many young people are dying by suicide and many at high risk go completely unrecognized and untreated, says lead author Cheryl King, Ph.D., a professor, clinical child psychologist, and director of the Youth and Young Adult Depression and Suicide Prevention Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan Medicine.
A new digital screening tool for use in emergency rooms could better detect and prevent youth suicides, Michigan Medicine said Wednesday.
The tool named CASSY, short for Computerized Adaptive Screen for Suicidal Youth is one of the latest efforts to address youth suicide, which is an increasing concern during the pandemic. Too many young people are dying by suicide and many at high risk go completely unrecognized and untreated, the study s lead author, Cheryl King, said. About half of the youth who die by suicide have never received any mental health services.
King, a clinical child psychologist and director of the Youth and Young Adult Depression and Suicide Prevention Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan Medicine, said there is an urgent need to improve youth suicide screening.