TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2007//
TI  - Seasonality of Suicide: Relationship with the Reason for Suicide
JO  - Neuropsychobiology
A1  - Rocchi, Marco B.
A1  - Sisti, Davide
A1  - Miotto, P.
A1  - Preti, A.
SP  - 86
EP  - 92
VL  - 56
IS  - 2-3
N2  - Aims: This study set out to test the hypothesis that the suicides that can be attributed to a psychiatric illness show a higher seasonality than the suicides due to any other reason. Methods: All the suicides registered in Italy from 1984 to 2000 (57,796 deaths by suicide: males = 41,741, yearly rate = 11.3 per 100,000; females = 16,055, yearly rate = 4.0 per 100,000) were analyzed with circular statistic techniques, based on the maximization of mean vector length method and on the Rayleigh test. Results: The suicides clearly attributed to a psychiatric illness were 35.0% among males and 51.3% among females. An economic reason for suicide was more frequently found among males; somatic illness or sentimental reasons were equally distributed in both sexes. The suicides attributable to a psychiatric illness showed a significantly higher seasonal unevenness than the suicides attributable to somatic illness and to sentimental or economic reasons. Conclusions: The main drawback of this study is that psychiatric diagnoses were not formally assessed by a forensic specialist. However, it succeeded in showing that the dynamics of suicidal behaviour are not unilineal: suicides due to psychiatric or somatic illness mainly happen in spring/summer and those due to economic difficulties mainly in December. Patients with psychiatric and/or somatic illness should be more carefully followed in spring/summer.     <p></p>    <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0302-282X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000111538
ID  - ref1
ER  -