UW professor promotes suicide awareness

Two Washington teens commit suicide each week on average, according to the Crisis Clinic, a nonprofit King County organization. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among American young adults, and the second leading cause of death among Washington state high school students.

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[HTML_REMOVED][b]Warning Signs[/b][HTML_REMOVED]

According to the American Association of Suicidology, contact a mental health professional or a suicide hotline if you see anyone demonstrating any of the following:

Hopelessness

Rage, uncontrolled anger, seeking revenge

Acting reckless or engaging in risky activities, seemingly without thinking

Feeling trapped - like there's no way out

Increased alcohol or drug use

Withdrawing from friends, family and society

Anxiety, agitation, unable to sleep or sleeping all the time

Dramatic mood changes

No reason for living; no sense of purpose in life

[HTML_REMOVED][b]Suicide Hotlines[/b][HTML_REMOVED]

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, contact:

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK

National Hopeline Network: 1-800-SUICIDE

For more information, including warning signs and prevention:

American Association of Suicidology: www.suicidology.org

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education: www.save.org

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: www.afsp.org

[HTML_REMOVED]Even so, schools all over the nation are still shying away from discussing the topic, said UW professor James Mazza.

Mazza, an associate professor in educational psychology, is looking to change that. As president of the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), a 38-year-old nonprofit organization that seeks to understand and help eliminate suicide, he described the need for increased awareness in all schools. Mazza specializes in adolescent and middle school suicide awareness.

Mazza said while programs are growing -- in a few states, such as California, suicide awareness programs in schools are part of the law -- the topic still goes largely unmentioned. In fact, he explained, that was a main factor pushing him into this line of work.

"[During graduate school] I looked at depression, got into suicide ... and saw that schools were afraid to talk about the subject. That's what made me passionate about it," he said.

His wife, Elizabeth Dexter-Mazza, a postdoctoral student in psychology at the UW, agrees.

It is an area that is under-funded and under-researched," she said. There needs to be an effort to help suicidal people build a life worth living, she added.

According to another suicide prevention organization, Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE), most young people who are suicidal "have clinical depression alone, or in conjunction with another depressive illness" such as ADD or child-onset schizophrenia.

Professor Mazza believes the most important way to prevent suicide is to recognize the signs.

SAVE's Web site lists as warning signs for possible suicide attempts an individual talking about helplessness or worthlessness, making arrangements and giving things away or suddenly feeling happier or calmer.

For teachers and school administrators to be able to recognize and understand these signs among their students is the first step to prevention, Mazza said.

The second step, he said, is to put "in place opportunities for adolescents to [have] more services" for students to turn to. For its part, SAVE has created a suicide prevention program specifically for schools, which helps educate both faculty and families.

Mazza said these prevention programs are just as integral to a school curriculum as anything else.

"There are no wide-scale school programs on suicide awareness and prevention largely because schools don't have the resources to effectively deal with the at-risk youth they identify," Mazza said in an article on medicalnewstoday.com. "Education should not be equated to only academics."