Scientists at Leipzig University Medical Center collected suicide statistics, broken down by age group and gender, in three federal states. The positive news: Despite the psychological stress on the population during the pandemic, no increase in suicides was observed in the overall sample.

It is the most current and largest data collection to date on the topic of suicide mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Scientists from the Leipzig University Medical Center as well as the Ulm University Hospital and the University of Vienna evaluated suicide deaths from police crime statistics in the federal states of Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein of eleven million inhabitants. The researchers looked at the data from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2021 in order to be able to compare the periods before and during the pandemic. The results were recently published in the German Medical Journal.

It is known from the past that economic crises, epidemics or other threat scenarios influence the suicide rates of the people affected. An increase in suicides was therefore feared in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our goal was to provide reliable data during the COVID-19 pandemic. “In particular, the specific risks of individual age groups and gender,” says study leader PD Dr. med. habil. Daniel Radeloff and summarizes some important results: “In particular, a general increase in the number of suicides among older people compared to the pre-pandemic period, for example due to isolation due to contact restrictions, could not be proven. In the age group of children and adolescents, our analysis also showed no increased suicide rate, analogous to findings from Great Britain.”

For men, the number of total suicides fell slightly in the period 2020-2021 compared to 2017-2019, while there was a slight increase in suicides for women. However, in both cases the change was not significant.

However, there was a significant reduction among men in the age range 81 to 90 years, and a significant increase for those over 90 years old. Since the characteristics of male gender and old age are strongly associated with suicide, this group is already at high risk of suicide, the scientists explain.

“Continued monitoring of suicide rates seems sensible, as side effects or consequences of the current crises can also be expected in the coming months and years.”

Dr. Radeloff, acting head of the Clinic for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics of Childhood and Adolescence at the University Hospital Leipzig

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Original publication: Original title of the publication in Deutsches Ärzteblatt: Suicides in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. DOI: 10.3238/arztebl.m2022.0198

Source: German health portal


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