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Citation
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Nomura S, Kawashima T, Harada N, Yoneoka D, Tanoue Y, Eguchi A, Gilmour S, Kawamura Y, Hashizume M. Psychiatry Res. 2021; 300: e113913. |
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Abstract
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Suicide is a rising concern during the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide (Gunnell, 2020). A recent analysis found, for the first time, excess suicide deaths among women in July, August and September 2020 in Japan, and no such elevated mortality for men (Nomura, 2021). This report updates these estimates of the gender-specific burden of suicide death related to COVID-19 in Japan up until December 2020.
Monthly mortality data from December 2010 to December 2020 were obtained from the National Police Agency, Japan (National Police Agency, 2021). In exactly the same way as Nomura et al. (2021) (Nomura, 2021), a quasi-Poisson regression model was used to estimate the expected monthly number of deaths from suicide and the upper and lower bounds of the two-sided 95% prediction interval for these deaths (Farrington, 1996; Noufaily, 2013). This point estimate and the upper and lower bounds were set as thresholds for excess and exiguous deaths, respectively. We present a range for excess and exiguous deaths, which is obtained from the differences between the observed deaths and each of these thresholds. We also define the percent excess and deficit as the number of excess and exiguous deaths divided by their respective thresholds.
After September 2020, excess deaths continued to be observed every month in women. Particularly in October, 2020 there were 879 suicides, which represents 344.00 - 401.91 excess deaths (72.10-84.25% excess; see Supplementary Figure 1). For men after January 2020, excess deaths were observed for the first time in October, 2020 (108.00-234.49, percent excess 9.95-21.60), but have not been identified since then. Through September, 2020, the period covered in our previous study, female excess deaths for July, August, and September were updated to include additional suicide cases due to delayed reporting: 108.00-165.54 excess deaths (21.71-33.28% excess) in July; 103.00-177.07 excess deaths (20.77-35.70% excess) in August; and 102.00-174.04 excess deaths (21.30-36.34% excess) in September. In men, no excess was observed during the July-September period.
The measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 have raised concerns that suicide rates may increase as a result of economic downturn, deteriorating existing mental health, increased social and emotional loneliness (Gunnell, 2020; Reger, 2020; Kawohl, 2020). Women in Japan are more likely than men to be employed as lower-paid temporary workers under unstable labor contracts...
Language: en |