Suicidal attempts in adolescence and childhood.

Only a relatively small number of investigations concerning the incidence of suicides and suicidal attempts in childhood and adolescence have been published. There are also good reasons for assuming that the figures vary from country to country, and that the results are not universally valid, since the frequency of suicides in relation to the total population shows important variations in different countries [l, 5, 9, 13, 151. The purpose of the present investigation was to study the frequency of suicides and suicidal attempts in Swedish children and adolescents. It was further considered to be of interest to collect data on the social background of the patients, the method of and the reasons for the attempted suicide. In this survey no attempt has been made to penetrate in detail the psychological and psychiatric problems underlying suicidal attempts made by children and adolescents.