A Truthful Look at Statistics

[Guest guest]

A Truthful Look at Statistics

Teen and adolescent suicides are hot topics in the media. Especially since

research keeps confirming that there are in fact links between certain

antidepressant medications and suicidal behavior.

FDA hearing, Congressional committees and numerous lawsuits against

pharmaceutical companies are the news of the day and these all center around

children suicides.

Preventing teen and adolescent suicide is the basic argument for a push to

implement mandatory mental health screening programs into American schools.

Psychiatrists love to repeat over and over the statistic that " Suicide is

the third leading cause of death for teens in the United States. "

But what's the truth? It is an unfortunate fact that suicides do happen. If

one looks at the statistics honestly however, adolescent and teen suicide

might not be as common as one would think.

The truth is:

Adolescent and teen suicide rates are lower than all other suicide rates by

age group.

Elderly people over 75 are more than three times more likely to commit

suicide than teens.

The suicide rate for teens is a little less than 1 in 10,000 people or .01

percent.

Adolescent suicide is extremely rare. Less that 1 in 100,000 children commit

suicide. The actual percentage of adolescent suicides is around .0007

percent.

Out of about 60 million adolescents in the US, in the year 2000, there were

307 suicides by children 14 or younger.

http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/374.pdf

20 Percent of Children are Crazy!

20 percent or 1 in 5, these are important numbers to remember in the mental

health industry.

According to the Surgeon General's report on mental health, " About one in

five Americans experiences a mental disorder in the course of a year. "

The report also states, " Approximately one in five children and adolescents

experiences the signs and symptoms of a DSM-IV disorder during the course of

a year. "

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/chapter1/sec4.html#chap3

Darcy Gruttadaro, director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill's

Child and Adolescent Action Center, said recent studies estimate that 20

percent of all youths suffer from an undiagnosed mental illness.

Another psychiatric study called MECA* estimated that almost 21 percent of

U.S. children ages 9 to 17 had a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder

associated with at least minimum impairment.

* Multi-site Epidemiologic Surveys of Mental Disorders in Child and

Adolescent Populations

http://www.c-disc.com/histry.htm

Mental Health Screening

According the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health;

The mission of public schools is to educate all students. However, children

with serious emotional disturbances have the highest rates of school

failure. .Schools are where children spend most of each day. While schools

are primarily concerned with education, mental health is essential to

learning as well as to social and emotional development. Because of this

important interplay between emotional health and school success, schools

must be partners in the mental health care of our children.

Schools are in a key position to identify mental health problems early and

to provide a link to appropriate services. Every day more than 52 million

students attend over 114,000 schools in the U.S. When combined with the six

million adults working at those schools, almost one-fifth of the population

passes through the Nation's schools on any given weekday. Clearly, strong

school mental health programs can attend to the health and behavioral

concerns of students, reduce unnecessary pain and suffering, and help ensure

academic achievement.

http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/reports/FinalReport/FullReport-05.htm

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health list out Columbia University's

TeenScreen program as the model program for mental health screening.

www.teenscreen.org

TeenScreen was developed psychiatrist, Dr. Shaffer and colleagues in

the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University. The

move to offer mental health screening to every teen in the United States is

based on the findings of a psychological autopsy study by Schaffer

published in 1996. Schaffer did psychological profiles of dead people and

developed the screening process bases on his findings.

The screening process itself consists of a three steps. The first step is a

small questionnaire the person fill outs with questions like, " In the past

month, how much of a problem have you had with feeling unhappy or sad? "

These surveys can be handed out to a classroom and administered in a matter

of minutes.

If the completed survey indicates the person might be mentally ill, they

move on to a computerized survey that ask the person another series of

yes/no questions like, " Do you often blame yourself for bad things that

happen? " or " Do you sleep more during the day than you usually do? "

If the computerized survey indicates the person might be depressed they are

then scheduled to meet with a mental health professional who can then

determine if the student needs to be referred for psychiatric services.

TeenScreen Programs already exist on voluntary basis in 29 states around the

nation. A full 20 percent of those taking the screening are referred for

psychiatric services. The stated TeenScreen goal for 2004 is to, " Screen

40,000+ teens and refer more than 10,000 for treatment. " That's 25 percent

of the people taking the test!

A published report by Shaffer compared the number of people testing positive

on TeenScreen to the number of people already receiving psychiatric care

showed that only 11 percent of those people screened as positive were

already receiving psychiatric care. The implication is that for every one

person already receiving treatment, TeenScreen could potential refer another

nine people to psychiatrists.

There are people actively seeking to implement TeenScreen and similar mental

health screenings into both school systems and family doctor offices. The

state of Illinois has already passed laws which make mental health

screenings mandatory for all children under 18 and for all pregnant women.

One Illinois resident said the following about the program, " This program

will not be voluntary, No one will be exempt. If a family doesn't want to

accept the school's evaluation of their child's mental health, what recourse

will they have? "

" If anyone thinks they can escape this because their children are not in

public schools, they are mistaken, "

Mental health assessment will be added to the state's physical examination

certificate, along with mandatory immunization records. All children in

Illinois, unless religiously exempt, are required to have up-to-date health

examinations and immunizations for school entry.

Psychiatric Math

Psychiatrists claim that 20 percent of the teens and adolescent have mental

illness and 20 percent of children taking TeenScreen test positive for

mental illness. Is that a coincidence?

It should be noted that TeenScreen actually has a built in sensitivity

rating. Increase the rating and more people will test positive for mental

illness. Decrease the rating and less people test positive. One wonders if

TeenScreen sensitivity isn't tweaked to produce that 20 percent.

TeenScreen has the state goal to " Screen 40,000+ teens and refer more than

10,000 for treatment. "

So, TeenScreen refers 20 percent of those taking the test for mental health

treatment when only .01 percent actually commits suicide. This means the

TeenScreen program would refer 2000 people for psychiatric treatment for

each single potential of suicide. That's psychiatric math for you.

A Solution Worse Than the Problem

Are the teen and adolescent suicide rates really so high that we need to

screen all American children for mental illness? Do we really need to send

2000 children for mental treatment for each potential suicide? It doesn't

add up, unless you have stock in Pharma.

[Guest guest]

was it mark twain that once said; “figures don’t lie…but liars figure.” (i

know i'm paraphrasing horribly.)

anyone can take statistics and present them so that they say exactly what

they want them to say. personally i think kids could profit a lot more from

more REAL love, firmness, and less " i want to be your friend and empower

you " . parents should be parents, not friends. but that is a whole 'nother

rant ;-). (which actually got published online, if you want to read it let

me know <g>)

susan

A Truthful Look at Statistics