P0270 - Gender differences of teenagers manner of suicide

Abstract

Objective:

suicide is one of the core health problems in the global society. One of the predominant causes of death among young Europeans is suicide. Recent statistic data on suicide proves that Lithuania is one of the leaders in this range.

The goal is to define and compare the peculiarities of suicide behavior among teenagers of different sex.

Methods:

109 teenagers were researched in the age group of 14 to 17 (52 boys and 57 girls), they were treated in Kaunas University of Medicine Psychiatry Clinics Children – Teenagers Department after they had tried to commit a suicide.

Results:

Researching teenagers' mode of suicide, the correlation between mode of suicide and sex was defined (χ2=19,29, lls=3, p=0,0001). Only every fourth (25,0 %) teenager – boy used medicaments for killing himself, whereas even two thirds of girls (64,9 %) took medicine to commit a suicide (p<0,001). Self inflicted wound (32,7 %) was prevailing in the group of boys comparing with the group of girls (15,8 %) (p<0,05); hanging as a suicide method was eight times more frequent between the boys than the girls - accordingly 13,5 % and 1,8 % (p<0,001).

Conclusions:

research data suggests that teenage boys and girls manner of suicide implies statistically significant differences.