Pediatric suicide: Review of a preventable tragedy

Concepts of suicide are explored in this issue with a focus on suicide in children and adolescents. The epidemiology of pediatric suicide in the United States is reviewed; also, risk and protective factors, as well as prevention strategies, are discussed. Suicide in the pediatric athlete and the potential protective effect of exercise are examined. In addition, this analysis addresses the beneficial role of psychological management as well as current research on pharmacologic treatment and brain stimulation procedures as part of comprehensive pediatric suicide prevention. Though death by suicide in pediatric persons has been and remains a tragic phenomenon, there is much that clinicians, other healthcare professionals, and society itself can accomplish in the prevention of pediatric suicide as well as the management of suicidality in our children and adolescents.