Suicide: current trends

The Scientific World JOURNAL, 2005

2019

As, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said "the thought of suicide is a great consolation by means of it one gets through many a dark night", Suicide is the same going in the current scenario. Today, this epidemic cause of death of ending ones own life to get rid of society one own duties and hence makes a coward a press material. The thought of suicide is more killing than doing suicide itself, as a person dies more than hundred times thinking about it. Today's youth or the upcoming generation, where the so called modern lifestyle prevail has stopped thinking and doing work in a psychological manner of living it life more beautifully, instead choose the way of ending ones own life. It never matters to someone or the society how you were living or you die but when one attempts suicide then have to face the cruel society with hatredness and grief. Yes, but who forced one to take a bold step like this, or it was the only fault of the victim who faced it. A number of...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2018

Suicide is a worldwide phenomenon. This review is based on a literature search of the World Health Organization (WHO) databases and PubMed. According to the WHO, in 2015, about 800,000 suicides were documented worldwide, and globally 78% of all completed suicides occur in low-and middle-income countries. Overall, suicides account for 1.4% of premature deaths worldwide. Differences arise between regions and countries with respect to the age, gender, and socioeconomic status of the individual and the respective country, method of suicide, and access to health care. During the second and third decades of life, suicide is the second leading cause of death. Completed suicides are three times more common in males than females; for suicide attempts, an inverse ratio can be found. Suicide attempts are up to 30 times more common compared to suicides; they are however important predictors of repeated attempts as well as completed suicides. Overall, suicide rates vary among the sexes and across lifetimes, whereas methods differ according to countries. The most commonly used methods are hanging, self-poisoning with pesticides, and use of firearms. The majority of suicides worldwide are related to psychiatric diseases. Among those, depression, substance use, and psychosis constitute the most relevant risk factors, but also anxiety, personality-, eating-and trauma-related disorders as well as organic mental disorders significantly add to unnatural causes of death compared to the general population. Overall, the matter at hand is relatively complex and a significant amount of underreporting is likely to be present. Nevertheless, suicides can, at least partially, be prevented by restricting access to means of suicide, by training primary care physicians and health workers to identify people at risk as well as to assess and manage respective crises, provide adequate follow-up care and address the way this is reported by the media. Suicidality represents a major societal and health care problem; it thus should be given a high priority in many realms.

International Journal of Medical and Health Sciences, 2020

Background: Suicide stands at fifth major health problem worldwide. The incidence is 10-12/100000 populations per year. The use of means of suicide act variably changing from time to time under influence of available equipment and materials in the vicinities. As for example firearms shot, a deadly means of act is most common among Europeans and Americans but still hangings is a choice in developing countries, charcoal soothing in petrochemical and coal worlds, pesticides is a favorite choice among farmers. The factors compelling act are financial crisis, deficit support systems, poor crisis intervention, procurement and negligent rescues. The present study is to highlight means of act and factors responsible for such brutal acts. Method: The applicable methods selected for this study is based on the review of articles available on various website reflected from different geographical area across the world obtained from 45 full texts available on internet, out of which 29 were consid...

Nursing Journal of India

MedNEXT Journal of Medical and Health Sciences

Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy, 2015

Worldwide, suicide remains a huge public health and social dilemma resulting in the loss of approximately one million lives each year. It is one of the three leading causes of death among the most economically productive age group, i.e., 15-44 years and the second leading cause among the youth. The greatest burden is borne by the low and middle-income countries, ill-equipped to deal with the mental health issues of their populations. High-income countries replete with resources are also struggling with the issue because of inaccessible services or lack of reinforcement of preventative policies. This paper summarizes the theoretical bases of suicide to help better understand the motivations of the most vulnerable groups. In addition, it provides an overview of risk factors and assessment tools. Further, it lays down the guidelines for preventative and management strategies. The aim is to assist clinicians in addressing specific underlying causes of suicidal behaviors and developing quick and effective action plans to help those in dire need.

Indian Journal of Health & Medical Law, 2022

Suicide is a public health and social unlawful phenomenon which is known as a conscious or an unconscious tragic reaction to stress, depression or trauma demonstrated by an individual or a group of individuals with a direct or indirect intention of putting an end to their own lives by either selfpoisoning, shooting, knifing or by hanging (voluntary homicide). This persistent social reoccurrence is the fourth leading mortality rate in the world today with a death rate ranging from 700000 to 800000 (seven hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand) per year with about 77% rate in Africa and other underdeveloped countries across the globe. This has prompted the researchers to embark on this topic so as to succinctly address the causes and prevention of suicide in contemporary world. The paper also has as objectives to reveal the classes of suicide hardly anticipated by the society, negligible but dangerous.

Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2008

Une traduction en français de ce résumé figure à la fin de l'article. Al final del artículo se facilita una traducción al español.

BMJ, 2019

Objectives To use the estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 to describe patterns of suicide mortality globally, regionally, and for 195 countries and territories by age, sex, and Socio-demographic index, and to describe temporal trends between 1990 and 2016. Design Systematic analysis. Main outcome measures Crude and age standardised rates from suicide mortality and years of life lost were compared across regions and countries, and by age, sex, and Socio-demographic index (a composite measure of fertility, income, and education). Results The total number of deaths from suicide increased by 6.7% (95% uncertainty interval 0.4% to 15.6%) globally over the 27 year study period to 817 000 (762 000 to 884 000) deaths in 2016. However, the age standardised mortality rate for suicide decreased by 32.7% (27.2% to 36.6%) worldwide between 1990 and 2016, similar to the decline in the global age standardised mortality rate of 30.6%. Suicide was the leading cause of age standardised years of life lost in the Global Burden of Disease region of high income Asia Pacific and was among the top 10 leading causes in eastern Europe, central Europe, western Europe, central Asia, Australasia, southern Latin America, and high income North America. Rates for men were higher than for women across regions, countries, and age groups, except for the 15 to 19 age group. There was variation in the female to male ratio, with higher ratios at lower levels of Socio-demographic index. Women experienced greater decreases in mortality rates (49.0%, 95% uncertainty interval 42.6% to 54.6%) than men (23.8%, 15.6% to 32.7%). Conclusions Age standardised mortality rates for suicide have greatly reduced since 1990, but suicide remains an important contributor to mortality worldwide. Suicide mortality was variable across locations, between sexes, and between age groups. Suicide prevention strategies can be targeted towards vulnerable populations if they are informed by variations in mortality rates.

JPMA. The Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 2017

It is considered that people from poor countries get depressed which ultimately leads to suicide. It is estimated that one million people commit suicide every year worldwide. It is considered from statistics that global annual suicide fatalities could rise to 1.5 million by 2020. Economically and culturally the most influential countries of East Asia are China, Japan and South Korea. To find the underlying causes for such a high suicide rate was the basic purpose of this article. We selected 100 suicide research articles as well as World Health Organisation's statistics related to suicide in East Asian countries. Stress and insecurity, whether related to employment or in relationship, are the basic causes which ultimately take an individual to the verge of suicide. Some people also find suicide a mean to get rid of life due to some lethal diseases. Aged persons consider themselves out of life so they adopt suicide. The government has already taken serious steps to minimise the d...

Crisis, 2015

The recently published WHO suicide report indicates that the global incidence of suicide is declining (World Health Organization [WHO], 2014. This is welcome news for all working in this field and for the vast number of people affected by the suicide of a family member, friend, or colleague. However, much remains to be done. The report shows that there are more than 20-fold differences in the rate of suicide between high-and low-incidence countries and threefold differences across low-and middle-income countries (LAMIC) in the different WHO regions (WHO, 2014). If all countries had the same incidence of suicide as LAMICs in the Americas, there would be over 300,000 fewer suicides worldwide every year. Nevertheless, the potential for suicide reductions is far greater in some countries (e.g., those where particular high-lethality methods such as pesticides or firearms are commonly used or with high levels of alcohol misuse) than in others. This editorial summarizes, from a population (public health) and UK perspective, some thoughts about the contribution of suicidology to suicide prevention and, arising from this focus, some suggested priorities for research and policy over the next decade.

BMC Psychiatry, 2014

Background: Globally, suicide is an important cause of mortality. In low-and middle income settings, it is difficult to find unequivocal data to establish suicide rates. The objective of this review is to synthesize the reporting of suicide incidence in six south Asian countries. Methods: We conducted a scoping review combining peer-reviewed studies (PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE) with in-country searches for grey literature in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The review included mapping reported suicide rates, quality appraisals of the studies, use of definitions of suicide and means of committing suicide. Results: In total, 114 studies and reports were included in the review, including 50 peer-reviewed publications. Reported suicide rates varied widely from 0.43/100,000 to 331.0/100,000. The average suicide rate across studies was found to be high compared to the world average, however many studies were of poor quality or not representative. The majority of studies failed to explicitly define suicide (84% of the published articles and 92% of the grey literature documents). Poisoning and hanging were consistently the most common methods of committing suicide on the sub-continent. Conclusions: The reported suicide rates in South Asia are high compared to the global average, but there is a paucity of reliable data on suicide rates in South Asia. Reports are likely to diminish rather than exaggerate the magnitude of suicide rates. There is an urgent need to establish new, or evaluate existing, national suicide surveillance systems in the South Asian countries.