A JAMA Psychiatry report noted that the difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic can cause increased suicide risk. | Stock Photo
A JAMA Psychiatry report noted that the difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic can cause increased suicide risk. | Stock Photo
Texans who think the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is stressing them out - even to the point of considering suicide - are not wrong.
As Texas surpasses California with the second highest COVID-19 death toll, mental health officials have been drawing a connection between the ongoing pandemic and suicide.
In September, physicians at Fort Worth's Cook Children's Medical Center reported they were admitting about one juvenile suicide patient per day, according to a 21 CBS DFW news report.
Cook Children’s admitted 29 children in August following suicide attempts. So far this year, more than 190 such patients have been admitted, double the rate admitted during the same period five months ago, according to the news report.
"We see kids every day telling us they’re struggling," Kia Carter, medical director of psychiatry at Cook Children's, told 21 CBS DFW. "They wish they can go back to their normal lives."
Pandemic-related suicide isn't just happening in Texas, or even only in the United States. Last week the American Medical Association's monthly peer-reviewed journal JAMA Psychiatry released a report that said the pandemic can increase the risk of suicide "through its effects on a number of well-established suicide risk factors."
Before the pandemic, many nations were working out suicide prevention strategies and had seen some success, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Chief Medical Officer Christine Moutier wrote in the abstract of the Oct. 16 JAMA report.
The pandemic changed that.
"With the added physical and mental health, social and economic burdens imposed by the pandemic, many populations worldwide may experience increased suicide risk," the JAMA report said. "Data and recent events during the first six months of the pandemic reveal specific effects on suicide risk."
COVID-19's connection with suicide isn't only a Texas, or even a U.S., phenomenon. Suicides among professionals in India were already high, averaging 23 each day last year, but suicides among white-collar workers are up sharply during this year's pandemic.
In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report the drew a connection between mental health, substance abuse and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, the Pan American Health Organization reported the pandemic is exacerbating suicide risk factors for many people, especially health care workers, increasing distress anxiety and depression.
Suicide during the pandemic in Texas was noticed early on, with calls to Texas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness increasing about 300% in March and April.
"COVID-19 is not just causing harm to our physical health, it’s also leading to a major crisis in mental health," 21 CBS DFW said in a Twitter post in April.
Texas' Health and Human Services' website includes a resource page for suicide prevention, in English and Spanish, including a "lifeline" number to call, 800-273-8255 (800-273-TALK), and online chat at suicidepreventionlifeline.org
Alerts Sign-up