Citation

Costa T, Passos F, Queiros C. Crisis 2019; ePub(ePub): 1-5.

Affiliation

Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, International Association for Suicide Prevention, Publisher Hogrefe Publishing)

DOI

10.1027/0227-5910/a000570

PMID

30644777

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Police officers, as first responders to difficult situations with ready access to firearms, are frequently considered to be at increased suicide risk. AIMS: We aimed to calculate the suicide rate for male officers of the Portuguese National Police (PSP) and compare it with the Portuguese general population.

METHOD: Retrospective review of the PSP male officers' suicides between 2005 and 2014 and comparison with the suicide rate for the general Portuguese population, adjusted for sex and age.

RESULTS: A total of 39 suicides were identified, with 34 using a firearm - mostly the service one (30 cases). The average truncated (20-59 years) suicide rate for male officers was 20.6 per 100,000 person-years (95% CI =14.2-27.1). Over the same period, the rate for the general Portuguese population was 13.9 per 100,000 person-years (95% CI = 13.5-14.3). The standardized rate ratio was 1.5 (95% CI = 0.9-2.4). LIMITATIONS: Despite the 10-year period of observation, this is a small sample and there are issues with missing data, such as lack of information for retired or dismissed police officers. Denominators were converted to estimates of person-years observations and we should be mindful of the limitations in the validity of the reported rates.

CONCLUSION: Portuguese male police officers mostly die by suicide using service firearms. The suicide rates among them were not statistically different from those of the sex- and age-adjusted general population. However, given that police officers are healthy workers, we would expect lower rates - thus, similar rates could suggest an increased risk in the study sample.

Language: en

Keywords

Portugal; epidemiology; police officers; suicide