Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 9:20 a.m.
National youth suicide rates from the National Institute of Mental Health from' 2000 and 2001, the latest years available:
Nevada youth suicide rates from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for' 2000 to 2001:
To help reduce Nevada's high teen suicide statistics, the subject must be brought out of the darkness and discussed in schools and maybe even at the family dinner table, said experts attending a local suicide seminar Wednesday.
The seminar's leader, Lynda Tanner-Delgado, who gives about 200 lectures a year on the subject of suicide prevention on behalf of the Jason Foundation advocacy group, says kids killing themselves has become a "silent epidemic."
She told youth services representatives attending a suicide prevention training seminar at Montevista Hospital Wednesday that the teen suicide issue needs to be addressed with education and awareness of the "clear warning signs" that include deep depression and actual threats of harming one's self.
"When in doubt, always seek professional help," Tanner-Delgado urged those in attendance, noting that even "half-hearted" statements from teenagers such as "I have nothing to live for" cannot be ignored in the wake of teen suicides nationwide tripling since the 1970s.
"In the last 12 years, more teenagers nationwide have committed suicide than the numbers of American soldiers killed during the Vietnam War," said Tanner-Delgado, a member of the Nevada Coalition for Suicide Prevention.
The Jason Foundation, named for Jason Flatt, a 16-year-old honor roll student and football player from Tennessee who killed himself in 1997, conducts suicide prevention training in 47 states and five countries.
Bradley Grunner, a psychologist for the Community College of Southern Nevada who attended Wednesday's seminar, said he was glad it addressed the myth that talking about suicide prevention puts the idea of suicide in kids' heads.
"Discussion about the subject, especially among families, is very important," he said. "One reason we have such a problem is because people avoid discussing the issue of suicide. We need to facilitate talking about it -- perhaps even as a discussion topic for dinner conversation."
Nevada is a leader in three of the four categories the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta uses to determine the at-risk status for youth suicide -- feelings of hopelessness, consideration of suicide, plans of committing suicide and attempted suicide.
The survey of ninth to 12th graders from 2001 to 2003, found that 29.9 percent of Nevada youths felt sad and hopeless compared with the national average of 28.6 percent. Also, the survey found that 18.1 percent of Nevada teens said they considered attempting suicide compared with 16.9 percent nationwide.
The CDC survey found that 8.8 percent of Nevada's youths attempted suicide compared with the national average 8.5 percent. The only category where Nevada did better than the national average was in planning to commit suicide -- 15.1 percent of Nevada youths compared with 16.5 percent nationally.
What this means, Tanner-Delgado said, is that, in the last year, one-in-three Nevada youths battled depression, one-in-five considered suicide as an option, one-in-seven planned out suicide scenarios and one-in-12 actually have tried to take their lives.
She said in four of five cases there were "clear warning signs" and in four of five actual suicides it was not their first attempt.
Warning signs for teen suicide include talking about committing suicide; making statements of feeling hopeless, helpless or worthless; deep depression; a preoccupation with death; taking unnecessary risks; self-destructive behavior; extreme changes in appearance; out-of-character behavior; losing interest in the things the teen most cares about; and giving away prized possessions.
Shanyn Aysta, another psychologist at Community College of Southern Nevada, where she and Grunner conduct an outreach program for students, said the seminar touched on the importance of youths finding "a safe person," such as a trusted teacher or coach "who will listen to them without judging them."
Tanner-Delgado says her organization encourages students to tell responsible adults when a classmate talks to them about doing themselves in or shows other signs of being at risk.
"It is important to instill hope especially for adolescents who have to deal with the normal difficult ups and downs of growing up," Aysta said. "We live in a death-avoiding culture that does not want to even think about our own mortality. But on the issue of teen suicide, ignorance is not bliss."
For information about suicide prevention call the Jason Foundation at Montevista Hospital at (877) 778-2275.
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