Abstract
Suicide and self-harm represent serious global health problems and appear to be especially elevated amongst indigenous minority groups, and particularly amongst young people (aged 24 years or younger). This systematic review investigates for the first time the antecedents and prevalence of suicide, self-harm and suicide ideation among Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth. Web of Science, PubMed, PsychINFO, CINAHL databases and grey literature were searched from earliest records to April 2019 for eligible articles. Twenty-two empirical articles met the inclusion criteria. The data confirmed that indigenous youth in Australia have elevated rates of suicide, self-harm and suicidal ideation relative to the nonindigenous population. Risk factors included being incarcerated, substance use and greater social and emotional distress. Notably, though, information on predictors of suicide and self-harm remains scarce. The findings support and justify the increasing implementation of public health programs specifically aimed at tackling this crisis. Based on the review findings, we argued that Aboriginal communities are best positioned to identify and understand the antecedents of youth self-harm, suicide ideation and suicide, and to take the lead in the development of more effective mental health preventive strategies and public policies within their communities.
Highlights
Suicide is the cause of over 800,000 deaths annually around the globe [1]
Studies were grouped into five categories, including studies that evaluated the prevalence of suicide among indigenous youth via analysis of coronial data (k = 8), [26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33]; studies that evaluated the prevalence of self-harm and attempted suicide via analysis of hospital admissions records (k = 3), [34,35,36]; studies that evaluated the prevalence of suicide, self-harm, or suicide ideation among Indigenous youth in the community (k = 7), [37,38,39,40,41,42,43]; studies that involved samples of incarcerated Indigenous youth (k = 4), [44,45,46,47]; and studies that evaluated risk factors associated with suicide, self-harm, and suicidal ideation among Indigenous youth (k = 5), [33,38,39,40,41]
This review highlights the substantially elevated rates of suicide, self-harm and suicidal ideation amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in Australia compared to nonindigenous young people
Summary
Suicide is the cause of over 800,000 deaths annually around the globe [1]. Organization (WHO) has urged that suicide prevention be given a higher priority on the global public health agenda [1]. Suicide attempts and other acts of self-harm are even more prevalent and are associated with an elevated risk of eventual death by suicide, as well as reduced lifespan more generally [2,3,4]. Self-harm and suicidal ideation are markers of considerable emotional distress, often associated with other psychological difficulties, and so remain important clinical outcomes in their own right [9,10,11,12]. It has been recognised that suicide rates are often elevated amongst Indigenous populations, including
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