Citation

Hakko H, Rasanen P, Tiihonen J. J. Affect. Disord. 1998; 50(1): 49-54.

Affiliation

University of Oulu, Department of Psychiatry, Finland. hhakko@sun3.oulu.fi

Copyright

(Copyright © 1998, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9716280

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Because secular trends in seasonality of different types of suicides has not been studied before, we utilized a novel statistical method to evaluate this phenomenon by using national Finnish suicide statistics during 1980-95. METHODS: Rates were analyzed with ordinary linear regression analysis. Secular trends were evaluated using ratio-statistic and its 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: The rate of violent suicides increased before year 1990 and decreased since that. The nonviolent suicide rate increased continuously. The decreasing tendency of seasonality in nonviolent suicides and a slight decrease in violent suicides are seen within the three successive time periods studied. CONCLUSIONS: Trends in rates and in seasonality of suicides might be related to changes in the health politics in Finland. LIMITATIONS: The short time-series and lack of studying associations of suicides with socioeconomic, environmental or biological factors are limitations of our study. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Studying the time-dependent changes in rates and in seasonality of suicides provide a novel perspective for the evaluation of the aetiology of suicidal behaviour.

Language: en