Kids’ Suicide-Related Hospital Visits Rise Sharply

About five years ago, pediatricians at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville found that more and more of their inpatient beds at the children's hospital were occupied by children and adolescents with mental health issues, especially those who had come in because of suicide attempts, or suicidal thoughts. These patients were known as "boarders": They were waiting for psychiatric placement because it wasn't safe for them to go home.

The doctors wondered whether the problem was specific to their city, perhaps reflecting scarce local resources. But in a new study in the journal Pediatrics, they found that this same pattern held true around the country over the period from 2008 to 2015.