The number of teenage girls who visited Quebec hospital emergency rooms after attempting to take their own lives rose by 23 per cent in 2021, according to the province’s public health institute.
In a report published Monday, the institute said that for every 100,000 girls aged 15 to 19 in Quebec, 1,630 visited a hospital in 2021 because of suicidal thoughts and 227 went to a hospital because they had attempted to take their own lives — more than twice the rate among any other age group of either gender.
Pascale Lévesque, an epidemiologist at the Institut national de santé publique du Québec, said that while girls 15 to 19 are more likely to use hospital services related to suicidal behaviour, they have one of the lowest suicide rates in the province — two factors that may be related.
“Maybe young girls go to the hospital more quickly, because their family members take care of them faster,” she said in an interview Saturday.
The report also found that the number of girls aged 10 to 14 who went to hospital after attempting suicide in Quebec rose from 49.2 per 100,000 in 2019 to 90.9 per 100,000 people in 2021, an increase of around 80 per cent.
Dr. Martin Gignac, chief of psychiatry at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, said the number of young people coming to the emergency room in psychological distress had been rising steadily over the past 10 years and has increased further during the pandemic.
“It seems like the pandemic has had a major impact on psychological distress, especially among teenagers,” he said in an interview Monday. He said his hospital has eight beds in the psychiatry unit but often has as many as 14 patients.
While Gignac said many teenagers have shown great resilience, the disruption caused by the pandemic has been difficult for those who are vulnerable.
Teenagers are at a point in their lives when they’re building their identity through interactions with their peers, Gignac said, something that has been made more difficult by restrictions on gatherings and online schooling. Sports and cultural activities, which can provide an emotional outlet for young people, have also been limited.
Restrictions on in-person socializing pushed interactions onto social media, Gignac said, adding that social media consumption can have a negative impact on young people’s self-esteem.
He said that while mental health professionals have attempted to continue treating their patients during the pandemic, the shift from in-person to online therapy sessions can make it more difficult to share private thoughts — including suicidal thoughts.
“I’ve seen teenagers having to go to a park, having to go walk outside while doing their psychotherapy session,” Gignac said. “I’m not sure it has the same value as going into an office and feeling safe and secure.”
Samuel Veissière, a psychiatry professor at McGill University, said high school, junior college and university students have been somewhat forgotten during the pandemic and have suffered the most from isolation.
But Veissière said that despite the increase in hospitalizations, there’s no sign that the number of people who are taking their own lives is increasing.
“We’re very resilient. The human species has gone through wars and through pandemics that were worse, in the sense that we did not have the kind of public health support that we have now,” he said in an interview Monday.
The most recent data on suicides in Quebec is from 2020, when they declined slightly to 1,016 from 1,128 in 2019, the institute reported. However, those figures remain preliminary, as all suspected suicides must be investigated by a coroner and some investigations have not been completed.
Men were three times more likely than women to take their own lives, and men aged 50 to 64 had the highest suicide rate in the province, according to the report.
Lévesque said that while people may expect to see a rise in suicide as a result of the psychological distress associated with the pandemic, suicide is more complex than that. “It’s about addiction, it’s about mental health. It’s not just social isolation,” she said.
If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs help, resources are available. In case of an emergency, please call 911 for immediate help.
The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention, Depression Hurts, Kids Help Phone 1-800-668-6868, and the Trans Lifeline 1-877-330-6366 all offer ways of getting help if you, or someone you know, may be suffering from mental health issues.