Reuters Health - Lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning (LGBQ) teens are more than three times as likely to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers, a U.S. study suggests.

In a national survey of almost 16,000 youth, about 25 percent of LBGQ teens said they had attempted suicide at least once in the previous year, compared with roughly 6 percent of heterosexual teens, researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Sexual minority youth were also more than twice as likely to contemplate suicide or plan a suicide attempt even if they didn’t go through with it, the study also found.

"LGBQ teens face staggeringly high suicide risks," said senior study author John Ayers, a researcher at San Diego State University. (…)

Overall, 89 percent of the participants identified themselves as heterosexual in the 2015 survey. Another 2 percent identified as gay or lesbian, while 6 percent said they were bisexual and 3.2 percent said they were questioning or unsure about their sexual identity.

To assess suicide risk, participants were asked how many times in the past year they had seriously considered suicide, planned a suicide attempt or tried to kill themselves.

Among sexual minorities, 40 percent of the teens said they had considered suicide and 35 percent of them planned a suicide attempt, the study found.

By contrast, 15 percent of heterosexual adolescents said they had considered suicide and 12 percent said they had planned a suicide attempt.

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