Child suicide attempts are on the rise in the United States and nobody knows why.

In the United States, suicidal behavior has turned into a public health crisis affecting some of the youngest inhabitants of the country.

For the second decade in a row, the number of children and teens who go to the emergency department for suicidal behavior has almost doubled, and the median age is only 13 years old.

"The numbers are very alarming," said CNN Brett Burstein, pediatric emergency physician at McGill University.

"We are seeing an acceleration of this problem and I am afraid that the peak has not yet been reached".

Using data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Infection Control (CDC), the authors badyzed more than 30,000 emergency department visits for children aged 5 to 18 years.

In 2007, at the very beginning of the study, the authors recorded about 580,000 visits for suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts. In 2015, this number had risen to 1.12 million.

This is the second in-depth badysis that shows this alarming increase and, it seems, the problem is only gaining momentum. Using the same types of data, a previous study reported a similar increase between 1993 and 2008.

This type of repetition worries public health officials for good reason. Suicide is a major public health problem and the second leading cause of death among 10 to 18 year olds.

While it is true that suicidal thoughts in children are not always life threatening, they are the most important indicators of future suicide attempts. Over the nine years of the study, the authors found that emergency department visits for suicide attempts increased by almost 80%.

Child psychologists have seen this coming for years, but that does not make the news easier to swallow. Of the total hospital visits recorded for suicidal behavior, almost half involved young children aged 5 to 11 years old.

From 1999 to 2015, previous CDC data showed that 1,309 children aged 5 to 12 years had committed suicide, about one every five days.

Lisa Horowitz, pediatric psychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health, said United States today that the statistics were stunning.

"It's only cold," she says.

The exact reason (s) for this trend remain unclear, making the crisis even more difficult to manage.

"No conclusion can be drawn about the cause of the observed increase, which is likely multifactorial," the authors write in their report.

Nevertheless, previous research indicates that children who commit suicide are more likely to have mental health problems and strained relationships with family and friends.

The problem is aggravated only by a serious lack of psychiatrists for children and adolescents and the rise of cyberbullying.

"The findings suggest a critical need to increase the community's mental health resources, emergency physician preparedness and post-emergency risk reduction initiatives to reduce the burden of suicide among the community. children, "conclude the researchers.

This study was published in JAMA Pediatrics.

If this story has raised any concerns or if you need to talk to someone, here is a list where you may be able to find a direct crisis line in your country.