Abstract

ZELAYA DE MIGLIORISI, Lourdes; PIRIS DE ALMIRON, Lina  and  MIGLIORISI, Belén. Suicide Attempts in Children and Adolescents. A Mask of Child Abuse?. Pediatr. (Asunción) [online]. 2012, vol.39, n.3, pp.167-172. ISSN 1683-9803.

Objective: To describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of children and adolescents attempting suicide and treated at the Niños de Acosta Ñu General Pediatric Hospital in the city of San Lorenzo, Paraguay. Materials and Methods: A retrospective descriptive study reviewing 102 cases covering 18 months from January 2011 to June 2012. Results: Of the 102 patients, 90.5% were female and 9.5% male, with the majority (61.8%) being 15-19 years of age.  Most patients (84.3%) were from the Central Department of Paraguay. The types of abuse most commonly found included negligence, abandonment, family violence in 68.6% of cases, followed by sexual abuse in 52%. In a plurality of cases the victims were abused by both parents (45.1%). Most cases (56.9%) were referrals from the emergency department of the hospital.The psychiatric diagnoses (ICD-10) most frequently associated were severe depressive disorders (72.5%), accompanied or not by psychotic symptoms. The most common type of self harm was ingestion of medications (77.6%) followed by self cutting (9.9%). Conclusion: Abuse was present in all cases we studied, and suicide attempts in children and adolescents should therefore alert the pediatrician to suspect child abuse and establish clear means for intervention and prevention.

Keywords : Attempted suicide; child abuse; negligence; abandonment; family violence; sexual abuse; mental disorders; severe depressive disorder; self-injurious behavior.

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