V Semyonova, N Gavrilova, T Sabgaida, S Nikitina

Russia is among 3 leaders according to suicides conducted by teenagers – 22 per 100,000 of corresponding population. In Russia suicidal mortality in adolescents (15-19 years) during period 1992-2009 increased by 20.6% in boys and by 23.2% in girls. Official statistics registers manifest suicides. In reality, scales of teenagers’ suicides could be much higher due to some subjective and objective factors leading to under-registration of losses. The section where suicides could be hidden is “Injuries of undetermined intent”. Suggested approach is based on verification of incident by its realization mechanism. It allows with high probability to suppose that in Russia there is persistent under-registration of teenagers’ suicides. In general, during 2000-2009 it amounted 13.7% in male and 22.1% in female adolescent population. Possible over-estimation of suicides number while using such an approach is determined by different poisonings and jumps (fallings) from high place but it is compensated by possible underestimation of such incidents due to other sources as well as deaths classified to R00-R99 causes. The question of this study is not about exact numbers of teenagers who died from suicides but about an effort to reconstruct true level of losses with due consideration of possible sections where suicides could be hidden.