The authors conducted a home survey investigating the prevalence of self-reported symptoms of depression, suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts among a probability nationwide sample of 1316 adolescents aged 12-17 and 1114 young adults aged 18-24. Depressive symptoms were detected by the use of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale. 20.3% of adolescents and 35.7% of young adults were characterized as being depressed. Similar differences between the two age groups in the prevalence rates of suicidal ideation and attempts were observed. Suicide attempters of both age groups reported a higher number of depressive symptoms compared with the non attempters. Characteristics that distinguished the suicide attempters from the total sample were low rates of school attendance, use of substances, previous psychiatric help-seeking and additional mental health problems in families.
