Researchers stated on Tuesday that even if the number of suicides among adolescents in the U.S. decreased since 2005, the number remains very big compared with the historical period. For 10 years now, the youth suicide rate has fallen but is still 18% bigger compared to 2004.

The government has released some antidepressants that make the teenagers stop taking drugs. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that the government’s suggestion made the patients accept to be treated with antidepressant or other therapies.

Robert D. Gibbons, a biostatistician at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that even if the number of suicides has decreased there is room for concern, as the suicide trend is still upward.

Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh analyzed data from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. They studied suicide reports from 1996 to make a statistic and they discovered that in 2003 antidepressants as Prozac of Zoloft were prescribed for teenagers, against suicidal thoughts.

The statistics showed that the year 2004 increased the number of suicides among teenagers. In 2005 the rate of suicide among adolescents between 10 to 19 years old was 4.5 per 100,000, down 5.3%. This proved that there were 292 more suicides than expected in 2005.

Jeffrey A. Bridge, a pediatric researcher at Nationwide Children's Hospital, said that the patterns looked much alike among males and females. "This was the first time that antidepressant use in children decreased and the first time that suicide rates increased anywhere near this amount," he said.