Suicide among adults have been associated to subthreshold psychiatric illnesses as well; however it is little known about the role of subthreshold mental disorders in suicide risk among children/adolescents.

Using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview Kid the authors examined 105 hospitalized children/adolescents in the Vadaskert Child Psychiatric Hospital, Budapest. Current suicide behavior was defined as giving positive answer to any of the following questions: “In the past month did you: think you would be better off dead or wish you were dead? want to hurt yourself? think about killing yourself? attempt suicide?”

We report data on 105 hospitalized children/adolescents, 76 (72.4%) boys and 29 (27.6%) girls. The mean age of the subjects was 11.4 years (SD = 3.43, min: 5, max: 17). Current suicide behavior was present in 18 cases (17.1%). There were one person with current suicide behavior, who did not have any current DSM-IV disorder, but he/she had current subthreshold disorder. The majority (n = 16, 88.8%) of the children/adolescents with suicide behavior had both current subthreshold and DSM-IV disorders. Eight children/adolescents (44.4%) with current suicide behavior had current DSM-IV major depressive episode and further 5 children/adolescents (27,8%) had current subthreshold major depressive episode. The prevalence of DSM-IV and subthreshold major depressive episode was significantly higher among hospitalized children with suicide behavior (n = 18), than among hospitalized children without suicide behavior (n = 87) (X2 = 5,272, df = 1. p = 0,022).

Subthreshold forms of pediatric psychiatric disorders need to be taken into account as well in suicide prevention.