TY  - JOUR
PY  - 1998//
TI  - Secular trends in the rates and seasonality of violent and nonviolent suicide occurrences in Finland during 1980-95
JO  - Journal of affective disorders
A1  - Hakko, Helina
A1  - Rasanen, Pirkko
A1  - Tiihonen, Jari
SP  - 49
EP  - 54
VL  - 50
IS  - 1
N2  - 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.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0165-0327
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -