It showed that:Nine per cent of adolescents reported experiencing both persistent pain (persistent or recurrent pain in the past six months) and suicidality (ranging from thoughts about suicide and self-harm to the enactment of these thoughts). Nearly three quarters of the group experiencing both pain and suicidality were girls (72.9 per cent). 20 per cent (one in five) of adolescents in the study reported suicidality and 22 per cent reported persistent or recurrent pain. 'Relevant training for health, social care and school-based professionals, focused on pain management, suicidal risk identification and appropriate referrals where necessary, could have a huge impact for young people with chronic pain by preventing suicidal risk progression. The full paper ‘Service use and costs in adolescents with pain and suicidality: A cross-sectional study’ can be read in eClinicalMedicine.
