Citation

Wu CY. J. Suicidol. (Taipei) 2022; 17(4): p303.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Taiwanese Society of Suicidology, Publisher Airiti)

DOI

10.30126/JoS.202212_17(4).0015

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide death rates have been climbing from 6.4 to 9.6 per 100,000 among the young population aged 15-24 years according to government statistics in Taiwan in the recent five years during 2017 and 2021. Meanwhile, the middle-aged and elderly people have faced different biopsychosocial challenges during COVID-19. The suicide prevention strategies remain a broad coverage across the lifespan and base on local governments' plans of high-risk management and health promotion for those in need of protective effects toward suicide risks. Recent observations of world suicide prevention trend also reflect focuses on specific gender and age-group differences. For example, in UK "Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the country, but suicides among teenage girls and young women have almost doubled in recent years.", said Mental Health UK (https://reurl.cc/EXDgva). More research interest appeared to be put on various gender and age characteristics and/or other typical suicide risks such as psychosocial and environmental factors. This volume in the Journal of Suicidology (JoS) collected several issues that can be differentiated into the young (university students, adolescents, young pregnant women), the middle-aged ("karojisatsu"), the elderly (repeated-suicide case series), and other risk-factor (internet addiction, long-term media report, treatment-resistant depression, pet loss, hospitalization) related topics. Specifically, more international opinions or comments revealed in this volume will draw interesting discussions toward advanced understanding of non-suicidal self-injury in adolescents and suicide statistics under the topic of "hidden suicide". A novel topic about pet loss and suicide ideation/plan among the pet owner is worth further attention and calls for more investigations under the popularity of pet ownership in this era. Moreover, three major topics related to the nationwide telephone survey on representative samples performed by the Taiwan Society of Suicidology every year have been published with different focuses, including internet use correlates, suicide reports profile (2012-2021), and suicidality identification. In terms of protective factors, resilience for internet users among the public and social support interventions for young pregnant women to prevent depression were presented in one original and one review article. The readers of the JoS will find it interesting and reflective from the abundant contents in this volume. We welcome more local and international readers to share with the world your valuable opinions or works about suicide research.

Language: zh

Keywords

diversity; lifespan; novelty; pet loss; suicide prevention; Taiwan