The suicide as a public health problem

The suicide is serious public health problem with far-reaching social, emotional and economic consequences. The world trend is significant input of both suicide itself and suicide-like attempts into external causes of mortality, tangible challenge to health life, especially in the youngest population. The WHO estimates that currently more than 700,000 suicides occur worldwide yearly, and each one deeply affect others persons. Russia takes one the first places in the world with its rate of teenage suicides. The suicide of adolescents aged 10–24 years is actual social demographic problem. The process of rapid physical, cognitive and psycho-social growth of this contingent affect feelings, thinking, decision-making and interaction with outside world, causing development of behavioral models corresponding to individual specific of responses to impacting environmental factors. Purpose of the study is, on basis of results of mental health monitoring from analytical materials on population suicidal behavior with emphasis on children and adolescent contingent, to present general conception of suicide as social phenomenon, to make brief historical excursus into becoming and development of problem; to discuss min terminology applied; to present corresponding statistics and to reveal difficulties in obtaining information.