Suicide on the rise?

There are a lot of stories out there about how suicide rates are rising but are they really. Well I guess month on month they may be right now, but then there may be some seasonal variation

 so are there any yearly changes?

Verdicts of suicide fell by two per cent in 2010 compared to the previous year;

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/statistics-and-data/mojstats/coroners-bulletin-2010.pdf according to the coroners Statistics for 2010.

Year	Suicide verdicts
1996	3399
1997	3355
1998	3756
1999	3693
2000	3626
2001	3389
2002	3242
2003	3255
2004	3368
2005	3235
2006	3220
2007	3007
2008	3305
2009	3330
2010	3252

Data from the coroners’ verdict returns.

However it should also be noted that during the last recession suicide rates rose, (from 2007-2008)

Of these 3252 verdicts of suicide in 2010

·         2521 were male

·          731 were female.

These figures may well be an underestimate of the true rate of suicide due to the law’s interpretation of reasonable doubt and other verdicts may be given instead. For instance open verdicts, where

The Open verdict is an option open to a Coroner's jury at an Inquest in the legal system of England and Wales. The verdict strictly means that the jury confirms that the death is suspicious but is unable to reach any of the other verdicts open to them.^[1] Mortality studies consider it likely that the majority of open verdicts are recorded in cases of suicide where the intent of the deceased could not be proved,^[2] although the verdict is recorded in many other circumstances

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_verdict

There were 2115 open verdicts in 2010, which could mean that there could have been 5367 suicides, however due to the nature of the verdict this likely to be the absolute ceiling number not the actual number.

Year	Open Verdicts	Suicide + Open
1996	2151	5550
1997	2319	5674
1998	2571	6327
1999	2509	6202
2000	2449	6075
2001	2519	5908
2002	2445	5687
2003	2619	5874
2004	2600	5968
2005	2531	5766
2006	2378	5598
2007	2242	5249
2008	2167	5472
2009	2240	5570
2010	2115	5367

It seems that the guardian may have another source as they quote

 In 2010, there were 4,532 suicides recorded in England and Wales alone, of which 3,421 (75%) were males. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/03/suicide-prevention-campaign-jane-powell

It should be noted that although people keep saying that the suicide rate is going up if you look at the last ten years and include all the open verdicts, you can see that actually it has on average gone down. (bold=lower than 2010)

So why do they say it’s rising?

Well one of the reasons is because there was an increase in 2008 over 2007 and although it is lower than 2008 it is not lower than 2007 and apart from 4 of the last 15 years rate is actually lower.

So why?

Well I would guess because it’s anticipated that with the recession hitting hard the rate will go up as it has in other recessions.

So why the big difference in suicide rates between the sexes?

There is no further break down for England and Wales however for Scotland there are better figures.

This is the 2009 data report.  http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Public-Health/Publications/2011-12-20/2011-12-20-Suicide-Report.pdf?34937685729

Here is it is noted that

Age-specific suicide rates (averaged over period 2007-2009) show that for males, the highest rates were found in the 25-34 and 35-44 years age groups, at 39.1 and 40.8 per 100,000 respectively. The highest rates for females were observed in the 35-44 and 45-54 years age groups, at 12.7 and 12.3 per 100,000 respectively

It might be considered quite obvious that men would suffer more during a recession than women as they traditionally they are the bread winners but also it is seen as more acceptable for women to talk about emotional distress than men. Two reasons why their distress may be pushed aside and/or ignored not only by them but by others too.

Care Services Minister Paul Burstow said statistics pointed to a six per cent rise in suicides between 2007 and 2008 when Britain was in recession. He said long-term unemployment had a “hugely corrosive” effect on mental health and those out of work for an extended period were 35 times more likely to commit suicide than someone in a stable job

However in the statistics from Scotland

Among those of employment age, 68% were in employment and a wide range of occupations were represented.

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Public-Health/Publications/2011-12-20/2011-12-20-Suicide-Report.pdf?34937685729

which just goes to show that it is not just lack of employment that drives people over the edge.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/168696/0046868.pdf

Across Scotland there was a strong relationship between suicide and socio-economic deprivation: the higher the level of deprivation.

Broadly the lower your class and the more poor you are relative to your peers, the more likely you are to consider/commit suicide. For the specifics you really need to read the paper which goes into more detail about the ‘what’s and where fores’ as it isn’t that simple. There plenty of stressors that can result in people taking their own lives.

Quite a large risk is mental ill health however, and in this document it states that

Of the 744 individuals in the Scottish cohort,

·          37 (5%) had been psychiatric inpatients, discharged within 30 days of their suicide.

·         A total of 102 (13.7%) individuals completed suicide within 12 months of discharge

·          21% of all suicide cases (158) experienced a psychiatric discharge within five years of death.

 These figures are cumulative. In cases where an individual had multiple admissions, only the most recent episode before death was considered.

The remaining 586 individuals had no record of a psychiatric hospital discharge in the five years before death.

A fact that does not give comfort as I feel it quite likely that this is either because the person concerned has not admitted to needing the help or it simply wasn’t available and not because they did not need specialist mental health care.

However the most concerning part of this for me is the difference in suicide rates between the sexes.

So why such a difference between the sexes?

Well

"You can't be a guy and talk about needing help," says Jane Powell, founder and director of the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm), which aims to reduce the high suicide rate among young men.

..."To ask for help is seen as being a female thing. These things happen to women but it doesn't explain why three-quarters of all suicides are male. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/03/suicide-prevention-campaign-jane-powell

Part of the problem I feel is that we ask such different things of young men as opposed to young women and they are being hung out to dry.

And literally so

A gender-specific breakdown of the methods used (Table 7) showed that hanging, strangulation & suffocation was the most common method amongst males...

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Public-Health/Publications/2011-12-20/2011-12-20-Suicide-Report.pdf?68882387877

They have nowhere to turn and when things don’t go well they cannot bring themselves to ask.

It seems to me that we as a nation have instilled our young men with some very poor ideas about what it is to be a man. Want to change that well why not start here

Calm is at thecalmzone.net Calm helpline: 0808 802 5858 within London, or 0800 585858 outside London

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So is suicide on the Rise?

Well not so far however it is very likely that it will as the recession starts to bite.