Study highlights need for suicide prevention strategies for young men

Males aged between 16 and 20 are at heightened risk of suicide, according to new research.

Charity group 3Ts said the research by Kevin Malone of UCD and St Vincent’s University Hospital with three other academics, showed there was an urgent need to develop suicide prevention and mental health strategies for boys in the 12- to 15-year-old age bracket.

Looking at suicide figures in Ireland and Britain in the 18-35 age group from 2000 to 2006, it concludes that “an accelerated pattern of risk up to the age of 20... which levels off moderately thereafter was uncovered, thus identifying a heretofore unreported age-related epidemiological transition for suicide”.