[Suicide attempts in children under 12 years of age]

Suicide attempts (SA) in children are often considered rare and poorly studied. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical characteristics of SA in children under 12 years of age. A retrospective assessment was conducted in 30 consecutive SAs reported in children under 12 years of age admitted to the emergency department at the Robert-Debré University Hospital (Paris, France) from 2007 to 2010 and the Regional University Hospital (Besançon, France) from 2000 to 2008. All suicide attempters were directly assessed at the somatic and psychiatric level. Patients were 8-11 years old (mean, 10.2±0.8). The sex ratio was 0.9 boys for 1 girl. The leading SA methods were poisoning by medication (53.3%), hanging or strangulation (23.3%), jumping from a height (16.7%), poisoning by chemicals (3.3%), and lesions inflicted by sharp objects (3.3%). In addition, SAs were characterized by high lethality (43.7%) contrasting with their low to moderate suicidal intentionality (43.8% and 56.2%, respectively). In conclusion, we reported that SA in children differs from those of adolescents by their greater lethality related to the methods used, but contrasting with the low intentionality mentioned by these patients.