Suicide and suicide attempt rates among children and youth in Europe in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction and aim: Suicide, the act of taking one’s own life, represents the most final decision a person can make. When this type of decision involves an adolescent or a child, people are often left questioning what led to it. The visibly increasing number of suicides in Poland in last years, especially among individuals as young as 12, motivated the authors to take a look at the current state of knowledge about young people’s mental health. The authors investigated whether the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath had a particularly strong impact on young people’s lives and what imprint it has left on their mental well-being. Another aim of this work was to summarise possible factors related to the pandemic that could have had a negative or positive influence on minors’ mental state and health, with a specific focus on Europe. Materials and methods: PubMed and Google Scholar literature search, and Google-based research. Results: The review presents statistics on suicides and suicide attempts in various European countries, and analyses possible reasons, including mental disorders and the impact of home confinement caused by the pandemic. Conclusion: It can be presumed that the pandemic had a negative impact on young people’s mental state. However, the overall outcomes are in correlation with pre-existing family and peer relationships, abusive environments, and problems that developed before the pandemic, as well as mental disorders. Also, the quality of mental health support systems varies between countries, making it difficult to generalise the findings.