Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s work to treat and prevent life-threatening conditions is not limited to physical maladies such as cancer.
This past fall, the hospital, recognizing suicide’s role in deaths among teenagers, opened the Center for Suicide Prevention and Research.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for teenagers and is at its highest rate of the last 15 years.
“Among young people, the risk of suicide increases with age throughout adolescence and into young adulthood,” says Dr. Jeff Bridge, director of the center. “Boys have higher suicide rates compared to girls, but girls are more likely to attempt suicide. This gender difference in youth suicide may be due to the greater likelihood of boys having multiple risk factors for suicide – e.g., depression and aggression – and choice of more lethal suicide attempt methods.”
Statistically speaking, Franklin County has an above-average rate of suicide. In 2014, there were 13 suicides alone, up dramatically from one or two annually throughout 2007-2010.
A few years ago, the Center for Behavioral Health at Nationwide Children’s was called to consult with a school system that had dealt with an increasing number of suicides. At that time, the Center for Behavioral Health did not participate in research on suicide prevention. Dr. Glenn Thomas, director for behavioral health community-based programs at the hospital, was one of the researchers asked to consult.
“Working with school staff and parents, the ongoing emotional impact of suicide quickly became all too apparent to us, even though the school had done a wonderful job of responding to the tragedies and providing support to their students and families,” Thomas says. “There was a palpable fear there would be another suicide, and we felt compelled to help them move beyond their painful losses and to provide a real sense of hope.”
Thomas formed a connection with Bridge, an established expert in behavioral health, to help with the school district.
“From a research perspective, we started having conversations with leadership at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s about two years ago to create a center devoted to suicide prevention research,” Bridge says. “After talking with Dr. David Axelson, Dr. Glenn Thomas and others within Nationwide Children’s Behavioral Health, it became clear that a center focused on both suicide prevention and research was the best approach to address the problem of youth suicide and develop improved ways to reach vulnerable youth throughout Franklin County and central Ohio.”
Through a connection with the school district, researchers developed a system to help recognize the symptoms of depression and provide help before tragedy strikes: the Signs of Suicide (SOS). The SOS curriculum focuses on the responsibilities of the school system to act when recognizing warning signs.
“The basic goal of the SOS program is to teach school staff, parents and students to respond to the warning signs of suicide, just as they would to the signs of any other life-threatening medical conditions, such as a heart attack,” Bridge says. “Students are taught to recognize the signs and symptoms of suicide and depression in themselves and their friends, and to follow the specific action steps needed to respond to those signs. The program is based on the ACT acronym: Acknowledge the friend’s distress; show you Care; and Tell a trusted adult.”
SOS is supported by research showing a 40 percent reduction in suicide attempts at the schools where the program is in use. As a bonus, Bridge says, it establishes a positive dialogue around mental health issues among schools, families and students.
“Seeing firsthand what a powerful impact the SOS suicide prevention model had on school culture and number of suicide attempts, as well as the school district’s ability to sustain the model over several years without ongoing clinical support, clearly demonstrated that the hospital could make a lasting impact on central Ohio’s adolescents if we collaborated with schools to implement the model across the region,” Thomas says.
Beyond SOS, the center has been trying to create and find more pathways for intervention and evaluation.
“Investigators in the (center) are particularly focused on research aimed at identifying behavioral and neurocognitive markers of risk for suicidal behavior in children and adolescents to frame targets for intervention,” Thomas says. “The (center) also focuses research efforts on identifying the best approaches to screening for suicide risk in young people and linking those at risk with mental health services to prevent suicidal behavior.”
David Allen is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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