Suicidal behaviors are among the leading causes of death worldwide. The large spread of suicide suggests that educational programs and literature to parents or guardians should include information about the potential risks and potential consequences of the onset of the idea of suicide in children. We identified 55 cases of suicide among children and young adults <18-year-old occurring in Italy between 1st January, 2011 and 31st December, 2013. The results point to the need to increase our understanding of the dramatic rise in suicidal behaviors during childhood/adolescence and of the causal pathways linking these behaviors to child-adolescent mental disorders. During routine care visits, pediatricians should be skilled to recognize risk factors for adolescent suicide in order to intervene appropriately.

BackgroundTo assess the prevalence of femicides in Italy over the last three years and the potential long lasting effects of these traumatic events for the children of a woman who dies a violent death.MethodsThe data used in this study come from an internet search for the number of femicides occurring in Italy between 1st January, 2012 and 31st October, 2014.ResultsThe total number of femicides was 319; the average age of murdered women was 47.50 ± 19.26. Cold arms in the form of sharp object -mostly knives- have caused the death of 102/319 women; firearms were used in 87/319 cases; asphyxiation was the chosen method in 52/319 cases. About the place where the femicides occurred, 209/319 were committed inside the victim’s house. Children of women who died a violent death were 417 with a total of 180 minors in less than three years. A total of 52/417 children were witness to the killing and, among these 30/52 were minors; in 18/417 cases, children were murdered together with their mother and among these 9/18 were minors.ConclusionsLong-term studies are needed to ascertain what happens to these children, to understand what are the most appropriate psychological treatments, the best decisions about the contact with their father and the best placement for these children.

Every year a lot of children die from heat stroke and hyperthermia because they have been left unattended in closed automobiles. These fatalities have augmented slightly in the past decade, but they are a poor recognized type of vehicle injury and little research has been done to discover the circumstances surrounding the fatal event. Two factors make children more prone to hyperthermia than adults: children have a greater surface area body mass ratio than adults and their thermoregulation is less efficient than adults. A scientific explanation about how it can happen that a parent leaves his child unattended in the car could be related to the Working Memory (WM): stress increases interference from irrelevant information, impairing selective attention and WM and influencing behavior. In the last two years in Italy 16 cases of child hyperthermia due to abandonment in motor vehicle were identified. These findings suggest that educational programs and literature for parents regarding automobile safety should include information about the potential dangers of heat stress, in fact, as these events are mostly unintentional, legislative efforts may be vain.

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