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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: A very few organizations publish suicide data in Iran. Since a national comparative study on the published suicide data is an important issue, the present study aimed to compare Iranian Ministry of Health (IMoH) data with Iranian Statistical Center (ISC) data in 2004.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, all the suicide data for the Iranian provinces that originated from IMoH and ISC were entered into STATA software. In the next step, the population number of each province was also added to the database and then the rate of suicide was calculated by applying the Poisson model.
Findings: A total of 3170 and 2486 cases of suicide were recorded by IMoH and ISC, respectively. In all the provinces except Ilam, Zanjan, Qom, Markazi, Hamadan and Yazd, the recorded suicides by IMoH were higher than those by ISC. Based on IMoH data, Ilam province had the highest rate of suicide whilst based on ISC data, Lorestan province had the highest rate of suicide.
Conclusion: The higher suicide rate in western provinces of Iran is in accordance with the results of other studies in Iran. Furthermore, the differences between IMoH with ISC data can be attributed to the methods each organization used for collecting the suicide data. These findings not only are important for implementing the suicide prevention plan, but also urge to design and implement a comprehensive surveillance system for suicide data in Iran.
Language: fa |