Teens are more likely to commit suicide after one of their friends dies in the same manner

May 22, 2013 21:01 GMT  ·  By

A study published towards the end of April argued that depression is contagious. A new research maintains that, all things considered, the same can and should be said about suicide.

Long story short, following their compiling and analyzing information concerning the mental health of several thousand teenagers, a team of researchers found that teens are more likely to commit suicide after one of their friends dies in the same manner.

The 22,064 teens taken into consideration for this research were all Canadians whose ages ranged from 12 to 17.

These specialists say that, as far as they can tell, a friend's committing suicide can significantly increase a teenager's chances of having suicidal tendencies and acting on them.

Daily Mail informs us that suicide's so-called contagious effect manifests itself for up to two years on average. However, it can sometimes last longer.

By the looks of it, younger teenagers (i.e. 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds) are the ones who have the highest risk of experiencing suicidal thoughts following the loss of a friend.

Thus, this group of teenagers was five times more vulnerable to said thought after exposure to a friend's suicide, whereas 14 and 15-year-olds were only three times more likely to have their mental health altered in this manner.

16 and 17-year-olds only proved twice more likely to have suicidal tendencies following the death of a friend.

“We found that exposure to suicide predicts suicidality. This was true for all age groups, although exposure to suicide increased the risk most dramatically in the youngest age group, when baseline suicidality was relatively low,” Doctor Ian Colman of the University of Ottawa summed up the findings of this investigation.

“Suicidality is of utmost public health concern, both as a predictor of suicide and because of its own burden on individuals and society,” said specialist further stated.