This Wednesday, Doctor Jimmy Mohamed, health consultant of Europe 1, examines the discovery of French researchers about suicide among students.

Thanks to an artificial intelligence, they were able to list the predictive behaviors of a passage to the act.

Every day of the week, in the morning of Europe 1, Doctor Jimmy Mohamed, brings up a health issue.

This Wednesday, he looks at the risk of teenage suicide, which could be detected more easily.

It would indeed be possible, thanks to artificial intelligence, to predict suicidal behavior in students.

This is what we learn from a study conducted by Inserm and the University of Bordeaux.

The researchers put in place, using artificial intelligence, a set of mental health indicators that accurately predict suicidal behavior in students.

How did the researchers work?

“To achieve this result, the researchers followed more than 5,000 students for six years and among them, 20 exhibited suicidal behavior. They identified four symptoms or characteristics that could detect more than 80% of suicidal behavior in young people.

What are these predictive criteria for suicidal behavior?

Three criteria are quite common to those of other adults, namely anxiety, suicidal thoughts and symptoms of depression.

But where artificial intelligence has been able to bring new knowledge is when it has shown that a drop in self-esteem is one of the factors predicting the passage of suicide among students.

Clearly, a stress related to academic success, the fear of obtaining a diploma that is not worth much in an ultra-competitive job market, or even of finding a job once your studies are finished, are elements that can precipitate a passage to the act.

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Find Jimmy Mohamed's column every morning at 8:37 am on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

Can we speak of a public health problem?

We cannot overlook the importance of early detection of suicidal behavior to allow access to adequate care.

Remember that suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds and that students are particularly exposed to this risk, even more at the end of the Covid period which forced them to sacrifice almost two academic years.

The good news is that there are questionnaires and psychological scales to assess anxiety and depression.

It would be possible to disseminate them massively among the population in order to detect at-risk students at an earlier stage and to help them.

Because yes, solutions and treatments exist. "