Child health professionals are issuing a wake-up call to combat suicide attempts among young people, which have increased since the end of 2020 and are still continuing to rise today. All over France, they are calling for a collective response.

"Emergency room visits for suicidal acts, suicidal thoughts and mood disorders remain at high levels, comparable (for 11-14 year olds) and even higher (for 15-17 year olds and 18-24 year olds) than those observed at the beginning of 2021," said Santé publique France (SPF, the French national public health agency) in its latest report on mental health from early April. The ratio is five girls to one boy. Charles-Edouard Notredame, a psychiatrist at the Lille University Hospital, said, "It has increased in all age groups among young people in 2022. It's instructive."

Between the 1st and the 11th week of 2022, SPF said that there were 6,418 emergency room visits for suicidal acts (up 27% from the same period in 2021). For the entirety of 2021 this figure was 23,791, compared with 17,333 in 2020 (the average being 19,586 for 2018-2019). Emergency room visits for suicidal thoughts have continued to increase since 2018-2019 (annual average of 4246). Their total was 5,210 in 2020, 9,003 in 2021 and 2,992 for the first 11 weeks of 2022.

Another piece of data is that while suicide "decreased in all age groups during the first months of the pandemic (except in the elderly), there was then a significant increase in the number of adolescents hospitalized for suicide attempts, with a 27% increase from the end of 2020 compared to 2019 and young girls are overwhelmingly in the majority," said Fabrice Jollant, psychiatrist and researcher at Paris Cité University. "It is very evident and very clear, and this high rate is continuing."

As for calls to the eight poison control centers (CAP) concerning the voluntary consumption of drugs or other toxic substances, "this year almost twice as many calls concern people aged 12-24, with about 35 calls per day on average, compared to about 20 in 2019. Women are the most affected," said Dominique Vodovar, doctor at the CAP of Lariboisière Hospital in Paris.

Alarm bell
Worldwide, suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds, behind road accidents. In France, it is the cause of death for between 300 and 350 young people per year in this age group, including three times more boys than girls (the latest available figures from 2017). On the other hand, the number of suicides had been decreasing for several years among adults, both men and women.