The global suicide mortality has decreased significantly in recent decades. Although the total number of suicides between the years of 1990 and 2016 had increased to almost seven percent to 817,000, the per year, write researchers Mohsen Naghavi of the University of Washington in Seattle in the “British Medical Journal”. However, considering the population growth of the people, decreased mortality in the period by about a third. “This is a very positive Trend,” says psychiatrist Paul Plener from the University of Vienna, who was not involved in the study.
The Team draws its data from the large-scale project “Global Burden of Disease”. The mortality estimates for 195 countries by 264 causes, by sex, age group and Region. In some countries, the suicide rate could be much higher, stress the researchers. Suicide attempts were not recorded anywhere, because they are stigmatized or prohibited.
Men are at greater risk than women
According to the study, men in almost all regions of the world and in almost every age group suicidal than women. Only in the age range between 15 to 19 years, the suicide rate for girls and boys is about the same. In the global age-standardized in 2016, almost 16 out of 100,000 men took their own lives, compared to 7 out of 100,000 women. Accordingly, the suicide rate decreased among women in the study period, almost half (49 per cent), for men of just under a quarter (24 percent).
In almost all regions of the world, the age-standardized suicide mortality decreased during the investigated 27 years. Increases recorded by the researcher only for the average of Latin America (15 percent), the affluent Western Pacific (10 percent), the Western Africa South of the Sahara (4 percent) and Eastern Europe (1.4 percent).
In Eastern Europe the researchers attribute the negative Trend and in particular the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic crisis in Russia. Globally, the development of go in a positive direction, emphasize it, mainly because of the most populous countries: “A large part of the global estimated decrease goes back to the marked decline in suicide mortality during the study period in China, and to the smaller but important decrease in India,” they write.
Decline in India and China
The development of the two countries explains almost half (44 percent) of the global acceptance. In China fell, the age-standardized suicide mortality, therefore, particularly significant to well-64 percent, in India by a good 15 percent. The Trend in China, the authors explain, especially with the significantly improved quality of life and improved medical treatment of mental illness.
In Europe, decreased suicide mortality, therefore, particularly strong in Denmark (60 per cent) and Switzerland (50 per cent). According to the experts, a better prevention and therapeutic care would have led to the decline. In addition, the places where it came to suicides had been secured.
Germany appears in the report, not separately. But in this country, the suicide mortality since the eighties the decline. In Germany, were recorded in 1990, according to the Federal Statistical office, approximately 12,700 suicides, 2016 there were around 9800. The Rate therefore fell from 17.5 per 100,000 people in 1990 to nearly 11.9 in 2016. In men, the figure in Germany is 18.2 out of 100,000, in the case of women, it is a 5.9.
According to the study authors, national prevention programs could reduce the Rate of suicides. Such plans would have been implemented only in a few regions and countries, including England, Guyana and Fiji. Also, Germany has a national suicide prevention programme (NaSPro). In General, it is necessary to develop effective interventions that are tailored to the respective regional or national context, stress the researchers.
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