The complex impact of risk and protective factors on suicide mortality: a study of the Ukrainian general population

Suicide in Chinese Graduate Students: A Review From 2000 to 2019

Suicide is an important public problem in China. The characteristics of Chinese graduate students' suicides and the reasons they occur have never been reported systematically. We conducted a systematic search of public reports on local media and medical websites in this review to gain a basic understanding of these questions. A total of 150 cases of graduate students' suicides were reported from 2000 to 2019. Among the 150 students, 65.8% were male, nearly half between 26 and 30 years old, most (83.3%) never married, and 43.4% of graduation students committed suicide in graduation year and postponed years. The top three suicide methods were jumping, hanging, and drowning. Graduation pressure, depression, and academic pressure were the three leading suicidal causes. There is an urgent need for the Chinese government and universities to pay more attention to prevent suicides among graduate students.

Tentativa de suicídio, transtorno de estresse pós-traumático e fatores associados em mulheres do Recife

RESUMO: Objetivo: Investigar a associação da tentativa de suicídio (TS) com o transtorno de estresse pós-traumático (TEPT), a violência por parceiro íntimo (VPI) e variáveis relacionadas aos aspectos socioeconômicos e demográficos em uma coorte de mulheres cadastradas na Estratégia Saúde da Família do Recife. Métodos: Foi realizado um estudo transversal, aninhado em um estudo de coorte prospectivo, com 644 mulheres de 18 a 49 anos, cadastradas na Estratégia Saúde da Família do Distrito Sanitário II da cidade do Recife (PE), entre julho de 2013 e dezembro de 2014. A TS foi avaliada pela pergunta “Já tentou pôr fim à sua vida?”, e o TEPT, diagnosticado por meio do Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist - Civilian Version (PCL-C). Foram realizadas uma modelagem hierarquizada, a aplicação do teste χ2 e a análise de resíduos padronizados. A associação das variáveis independentes com a TS foi estimada por meio de regressão logística simples e ajustada. Resultados: A prevalência da TS foi de 10,9%, e a frequência de TEPT, de 16%. As mulheres que tinham TEPT e também as que não possuíam religião tiveram maior chance de tentar o suicídio (odds ratio - OR = 5,11, intervalo de confiança de 95% - IC95% 2,9 - 8,7; OR = 1,76, IC95% 1,0 - 2,9, respectivamente). Conclusões: Houve maior risco de TS nas mulheres que tiveram TEPT e baixa adesão a uma religião. Sendo assim, compreendeu-se que o enfrentamento do TEPT se dá prevenindo esse transtorno, tratando dele e promovendo mais conhecimentos sobre ele, além do efeito agregador e protetor social que a religiosidade promove, que também podem ser estratégias de redução e prevenção da TS.

Substance use and suicidal ideation and behaviour in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Background

Understanding relationships between substance use and suicidal ideation and behaviour (SIB) has important public health implications for suicide prevention in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where 75% of suicides occur. This systematic review explored the associations between substance use and SIB in LMICs.

Methods

We searched five databases using a combination of keywords for substance use, SIB and LMICs to identify English-written quantitative studies published between January 2006 and February 2016. Data were extracted to provide an overview of what is known about the topic, highlight gaps in the literature, and explore the implications of current knowledge for suicide prevention. Studies included in the review were assessed for methodological quality using the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network checklist.

Results

Analysis of included studies (N = 108) demonstrated a consistent positive association between substance use and SIB across all substances (i.e. alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, illicit drugs, non-medical use of prescription drugs), all substance use dimensions (i.e. intoxication, use, and pathological use) and all SIB dimensions (i.e. suicidal ideation, non-fatal suicidal behaviour, and suicide). Most of the available research evidence comes from upper-middle-income countries, only 22% comes from lower-middle-income and low-income countries. Most studies focused on alcohol and tobacco, while neglecting substances such as cannabis, opioids, sedatives, stimulants, misuse of prescription medication, inhalants, and hallucinogens. Most of the studies employed a cross-sectional design, were conducted within a risk-factor paradigm, and provided little information about the potential interaction between variables.

Conclusions

Public health suicide prevention policy and research in LMICs should take account of the fact that: substance use is a potentially modifiable risk factor; assessment and management of substance use is integral to the care of at-risk patients; reducing consumption and hazardous use of substances in LMICs is important for suicide prevention; and research needs to be expanded to include more theory driven research that focuses on all substance use dimensions and SIB dimensions, while employing more sophisticated statistical methods.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-018-5425-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Religious coping among self-harm attempters brought to emergency setting in India

This study attempted to evaluate religious coping and its correlates among patients presenting with self-harm to an emergency setting and compared it with a healthy control group. Religious coping was assessed using brief RCOPE. Beck Hopelessness Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Barratt Impulsivity Scale, Scale for Suicidal Ideations and Irritability Depression Anxiety scale were used to assess for hopelessness, depression, impulsiveness, suicidal ideations and irritability respectively. The study included 32 subjects with depression and 77 subjects without any psychiatric diagnosis who presented with self-harm and 50 healthy controls. Compared to healthy controls, those with self-harm irrespective of presence or absence of psychiatric diagnosis less often used positive religious coping and more often used negative religious coping. Further, among those without psychiatric diagnosis (with self harm), there was positive correlation of negative religious coping with impulsivity and hopelessness. Among those without psychiatric diagnosis with self-harm, both positive and negative religious coping correlated positively with depressive scores, severity of suicidal ideations, anxiety and irritability, but associations were stronger for negative religious coping than that for positive religious coping. The findings of the present study suggest that those who indulge in self harm have lower use of positive religious coping and higher use of negative religious coping.

Suicide mortality at time of armed conflict in Ukraine

The purpose of this review is to explore the dynamics of suicide mortality rates in Ukraine during an ongoing armed conflict between 2014 and 2015. Suicide mortality data were obtained by reviewing annual analytical releases from the State Service for Emergent Situations of Ukraine and annual release of Russian Federal Service of State Statistics. Suicide mortality in mainland Ukraine and in the Crimea region demonstrated a mild decrease, whereas suicide mortality in the regions directly involved in the armed conflict demonstrated a prominent decrease. The results of this review support Durkheim theory. The limitation of this review includes general concern about quality of data at time of armed conflict in the country.