ABSTRACT
Some data from a long-term study involving a large group of children and adolescents having attempted suicide are presented. Psychic characteristics of the childhood and adolescence period, age-related specificity of psychopathic states and other factors determining the status of children and adolescents differentiate their suicidal manifestations as compared to adults and warrant a search for a special approach toward solving the questions of preventing suicides in youth. The differentiation between demonstrative suicidal actions and actual attempts at suicide in children and adolescents is rather relative due to their peculiar understanding of death, lack of death fear and inadequate estimation of their lives' value. In view of the above it is advisable to consider all suicidal actions of children and adolescents as genuine because their danger for life and health is equally great. Some personality characteristic features including emotional instability, excessive liability to suggestion, some explosiveness detected in all persons who have attempted suicide allow one to believe that they constitute suicidal predisposition of adolescent personality.
