6.154 SUICIDAL IDEATION DISCLOSURE AMONG SUBURBAN HIGH SCHOOL YOUTH

Objectives: Suicide is the second leading cause of death among adolescents (Hoyert & Xu, 2012) in the US. Depression screening is an effective intervention to improve mental health outcomes (Dever, Kamphaus, Dowdy, Raines & DiStefano, 2013; Pignone, et al., 2002) and prevent suicidal behavior (Schilling, Lawless, Buchanan & Aseltine, 2014). In schools, staff can serve as trusted adults for adolescents when experiencing suicidal thinking (Kelly, 2016; Joshi, 2015; Condron et al., 2014). However, it is not clear that adolescents are comfortable disclosing suicidal thinking to school staff. We investigated adolescent disclosure behaviors in a school-based depression and suicide screening program. Methods: Participants included 52 students from a suburban public high school who were screened for depression as part of a large-scale initiative. During interviews, using an abbreviated version of the K-SADS (Kaufman, Birmaher, Brent, Rao & Ryan, 1996), students were asked about current and past suicidal thinking. If endorsed, the Suicide Ideation Scale, Suicide Intent Scale, and Lethality Scale were administered. Interviews were conducted by mental health assessors who were not employed by the school. Results: Students were 14-18 years (73 percent identified as female). Of the 454 students who were screened, 52 endorsed suicidal thinking (8 percent current, 74 percent past, and 18 percent both current and past). Approximately 16 percent of these students also reported a previous suicide attempt. Overall, 71 percent of the students had told someone about their suicidal thinking at the time. Of those who did disclose, 58 percent reported telling an adult, and 42 percent disclosed only to a peer. No students reported disclosing suicidal thinking to a school staff member. Conclusions: Overall, almost 30 percent of teens in our sample never disclosed their suicidal thinking to anyone, and no teens in our sample disclosed to a member of the school staff. While schools may play an integral role in accessing students for mental health screenings, students appear to be unwilling to disclose serious mental health concerns to school personnel. These data suggest that, in order to capitalize on benefits from school-wide screenings, outside personnel should be engaged to implement screening programs within the school context.