Citation

Liu KY, Nordvik MK, Hedstram P. Psychiatr. Danub. 2006; 18(Suppl 1): 109.

Affiliation

University of Oxford, New Road, OX1 1NF Oxford, U.K. (ka-yuet.liu@nuffield.ox.ac.uk)

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16964057

Abstract

Shneidman's estimation that each suicide intimately affects at least six other people has been commonly accepted. Empirical studies conducted to examine suicidal risk after exposure to suicide in one's social network, however, were often limited by small sample sizes, short follow-up periods, and the range of social networks that can be examined. This study aims to examine the risk of suicide after exposure to suicides taking place in different types of social networks: family, workplace, school, and neighbourhood. The study population was the entire adult population in the 18-65 age range lived in Stockholm between 1990 and 1999. Death registry records were linked to annual information on the study population in government registers. Relatives, colleagues, schoolmates and neighbours of the deceased were identified. Suicide risk after exposure to suicide was estimated through conditional logistic regression. Effects of other individual correlates such as income and unemployment, as well as exposure to other forms of deaths such as accidents, were controlled for. This study exemplifies the importance of studying the contextual effects of suicide and has important theoretical and practical implications.

Language: en