B.C.’s chief coroner has said that “there are no easy answers” when it comes to preventing child and youth suicides.

Lisa Lapointe was speaking at a news conference in Burnaby on Thursday (September 26) convened to discuss the findings of a death-review panel on the topic.

“The tragedy of child and youth suicide is a complex phenomenon,” she said. “It is, therefore, very difficult to predict individual deaths.”

That point was emphasized in a release that accompanied the publication of the panel’s findings.

“Although there are a number of factors associated with increased risk of suicide, those factors were not found consistently across the children and youth who died,” the release states. “As such, panel members concluded there is no way of accurately predicting or identifying which young people are at the highest risk for suicide.”

The group reviewed 91 deaths that occurred from 2008 to 2012. Their findings include:

• The suicide rate for B.C. youths aged 10 to 18 is 3.43 per 100,000, making suicide the second-leading cause of death for young people (after motor vehicle accidents).
• Suicidal tendencies among children and youths increase with age. Eighty-eight of the 91 cases reviewed involved individuals between the ages of 14 and 18 years, and about half occurred between the ages of 17 and 18.
• Just over 40 percent of children and youth who died in a suicide had made a previous attempt to kill themselves.
• Twenty-seven percent of deaths in children and youth suicides were “completely unanticipated by family, by friends, or other people in the community”.
• Almost 60 percent of children and youth who died in a suicide were involved or had been involved in mental-health services.
• Thirty-eight percent of children and youth who died in a suicide had a history of substance abuse or were under the influence of a psychoactive substance at the time of their death.
• Two-thirds of children and youth who died in a suicide were male.
• Aboriginals accounted for 18 of 91 of the deaths reviewed (about 20 percent), which was two times higher than expected.

The report also looked at topics like bullying, sexual orientation, and school performance as contributing factors to suicidal tendencies.

Contrary to other studies' findings, the panel did not find a notable correlation between media reports and young people committing suicide.

“Media reporting on a previous suicide was not identified as a contributing factor in any of the child and youth suicides in B.C.,” the report states. However, it also notes that the Canadian Psychiatric Association maintains that media reports on suicide can be linked to “copycat” actions among young people.

That was followed by a note of caution about online social-media platforms.

“Social media use makes access to media reports on suicides far reaching and has given media professionals the ability to directly canvass the public, including children and youth,” the report reads. “As research on the topic of social media is emerging and there is limited knowledge around the association of the media’s use of it to elevating the risk of suicide, a sensitive and respectful approach to investigating…should be applied.”

The death-review panel made three recommendations.  The group suggested that improvements be made in areas of service coordination, that there be easier access for mental-health services for youth, and that the B.C. Coroners Service enhance data-collection practices with the goal of increasing the information available on child and youth suicides.

At the news conference, chief coroner Lapointe said her office would pursue all three recommendations.

The report for the B.C. Coroners Service is available in its entirety at the website for the B.C. Ministry of Justice.

Editor's note: Do you need help? You can contact the Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of British Columbia for support anytime.