Mental illness linked to suicide

ALMOST one in three people who commit suicide suffer from a mental illness or have a family history of suicide or mental illness, research shows.

Recognising and treating mental illness in young people could prevent suicide, a team of Danish researchers concluded after finding that a psychiatric condition outstrips socio-economic and family problems as the main risk factors for suicide in people aged between 10 and 21 years.

“Recognising mental illness in young people and dealing with it appropriately could help prevent suicides,” the psychiatrists and scientists from Copenhagen concluded in a study published in the British Medical Journal. “A substantial proportion of young people who commit suicide may have an untreated, under-treated or undiagnosed mental illness. Therefore an important target in the prevention of suicide in young people would be early recognition and treatment of mental illness.”