Citation

Voracek M, Vintilă M, Muranyi D. Percept. Mot. Skills 2007; 105(3): 1209-1222.

Affiliation

Department of Basic Psychological Research, School of Psychology, University of Vienna, Liebiggasse 5, Rm 03-46, A-1010 Vienna, Austria. martin.voracek@univie.ac.at

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

18380121

Abstract

Across the 42 counties of Romania, the total suicide rate and the population percentage of ethnic Hungarians were strongly positively interrelated (79% attributable variance). Counties with the strongest Hungarian minority had suicide rates converging to (or exceeding) the suicide rate for Hungary, which rate is high. Of a set of about 20 vital statistics and socioeconomic indicators, only life expectancy predicted a significant increment of further variance in the suicide rates. However, this effect was small, adding merely 3% further variance explained to 79% already accounted for. Overall, the findings are supportive of the Finno-Ugrian Suicide Hypothesis, i.e., the notion that geographic patterns of suicide prevalence may be partially due to genetic differences between populations. Supplemental analyses of a questionnaire item which specifically queried this study's main finding indicated widespread disbelief of this fact of suicide prevalence across a variety of samples, including two samples from Romania.

Language: en