Citation

Partonen T, Kiviruusu O, Grainger M, Suvisaari J, Eklin A, Virtanen A, Kauppila R. Br. J. Psychiatry 2022; 220(1): 38-40.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Royal College of Psychiatry)

DOI

10.1192/bjp.2021.136

PMID

35045896

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had negative mental health outcomes in populations, but the suicide numbers in Finland have remained unchanged compared with expected levels based on the pre-pandemic period. We included all deaths from suicide verified by the official cause-of-death investigations, including forensic autopsy with analysis of forensic toxicology samples, between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2020 in Finland. There was a decline in suicide incidence from 2016 to 2020 in men, and a declining tendency in suicide rates for every consecutive month during the COVID-19 pandemic period. The COVID-19 governmental policy responses do not seem to have led to an increase in suicide numbers.

Language: en

Keywords

*autopsy; *forensic medicine; *mortality; *population; *Suicide