CHICAGO — The number of teen suicides has fallen slightly but the rate remains disturbingly high, researchers said, possibly fueled by drug warnings that have scared many from using antidepressants.
The suicide rate was about 4.5 per 100,000 in 2005, the most recent data available. That follows an 18 percent spike the previous year that alarmed experts when first reported.
Until then, suicides among 10- to 19-year-olds had been on a steady decline since 1996.
David Fassler, a psychiatry professor at the University of Vermont, said the report suggests a “very disturbing” upward trend that correlates with a decline in teen use of antidepressants.
That decline stems from the Food and Drug Administration’s 2004 black-box warning label that the drugs could increase the risk of suicidal tendencies.
The new research, based on 1996-2005 national data, appears in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
