If your teen is socially withdrawn, be on the lookout for more serious problems, study suggests

(CNN) – If your teen’s opting out of the school football game or shopping with friends, chalking it up to teen angst can be easy. But you should pay more attention since social withdrawal could signal something deeper is going on, a new study has found. Being socially withdrawn and experiencing physical discomforts as a preteen is associated with a higher risk of having suicidal thoughts at age 16, according to the study published Thursday in the journal JAMA Network Open. Related Stories The authors considered their study urgent. Across the globe, 10% to 20% of adolescents experience suicidal thoughts, and suicide is one of the leading causes of death among them, highlighting the need for strengthened prevention efforts. Rates of suicide attempts and deaths by suicide among children and young adults in the United States have also been increasing in recent years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To the authors’ knowledge, “previous studies on suicidal thoughts mainly focused on [one category of] psychopathological symptoms such as depression, anxiety and psychotic symptoms,” said Dr. Shuntaro Ando, lead author of the study and associate professor in the department of neuropsychiatry at the University of Tokyo, via...