Roughly 900,000 American youths age 12 to 17 years made a suicide plan during their worst or more recent episode of major depression and 712,000 attempted suicide, according to a special report released by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The data are extracted from the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which asked adolescents ages 12-17 about symptoms of depression, including thoughts about death or suicide. The report defines major depressive episode as a period of at least two weeks in which a person experienced a depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities and had at least five of the nine symptoms of depression described in the psychiatrists' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -Fourth Edition (DSM-IV).

The special report, "Suicidal Thoughts among Youths Aged 12-17 with Major Depressive Episode" found that over 7 percent of youth ages 12-17, 1.8 million youths, had thought about killing themselves during their worst or most recent episode of major depression.

The data show that about 3.5 million youths ages 12-17, or 14 percent, had experienced at least one episode of major depression in their lifetimes. Almost 20 percent of females in this age group and 8.5 percent of males had at least one of these depressive episodes. Rates of major depressive episodes in their lifetimes were similar among racial and ethnic groups and increased with age.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health is an annual survey of close to 70,000 people. The survey collects information from residents of households, residents of non-institutionalized group quarters, and civilians living on military bases.

The 2004 survey included responses from 22,301 youth ages 12 to 17 of whom 3,179 were classified as having a major depressive episode in their lifetimes.