Citation

Inoue K, Takeshima T, Yamauchi T, Fukunaga T. Lancet Reg. Health West. Pac. 2023; 39: e100852.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100852

PMID

37521951

PMCID

PMC10372184

Abstract

'Status of Suicide' are released from the Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the National Police Agency at present.The basic content from the National Police Agency summarizes the data gathered by the police in each of Japan's prefectures, and the 'Status of Suicide' is utilized for research purposes, suicide prevention committee materials, and white papers from various fields and institutions. There have been some revisions to the causes of/motives for suicide on the Suicide Statistics Forms in the Status of Suicide reports issued between 2007 and 2021 and the report issued in 2022 as follows the specific reasons for these revisions are unknown. Most of the categories of causes of/motives for suicide were the same in 2007-2021 and 2022, i.e., 'family problems,' 'health problems,' 'economic and life problems,' 'problems at work,' 'problems at school,' and 'other.' However, 'problems between the sexes' in 2007-2021 was changed to 'relationship problems' in 2022. In all of these causes of/motives for suicide, there was a change in the number of subcategories between 2007-2021 and 2022. The 2007-2021 Status of Suicide reports allowed authorities to select up to three clearly ascertainable causes of/motives in a single suicide only when documentation that confirmed the individual's behavior while alive (e.g., a suicide note) was available, whereas the 2022 report allows authorities to select up to four causes/motives even when there is nothing to confirm the individual's behavior while alive, including the consideration of causes of/motives for the suicide from the testimony of family members or others familiar with the individual.

These 2022 revisions had a potential positive consequence in that the reports' subcategories were made consistent with recent topics. However, the revisions have some negative consequences: (1) the descriptions of some of the new subcategories are so detailed that it is not possible to use the new subcategories to predict the incidence of the previously classified subcategories, and (2) in the creation of the 2022 Status of Suicide report, authorities could select up to four causes/motives even when there was nothing to confirm the individual's behavior while alive prior to the suicide. The accuracy of these cause/motive statistics may thus be decreased. In addition to the changes in the names of categorie of causes of/motives for suicide between the 2007-2021 and 2022 reports; changes were also made to the subcategories (1), the bases for the judgment and the number of subcategories (2) and causes of/motives (3). The continuity of the statistics has therefore been severely compromised.

Due mainly to the major revisions in 2022, it will be incredibly difficult to obtain accurate year-to-year comparisons of the causes of/motives for suicide when using statistics gathered before and after 2022. For example, if researchers want to conduct a study examining the trends in the causes of/motives for suicide in Japan during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, they will not be able to accurately compare the causes and motives for each year. These major revisions of the suicide statistics will hamper many researchers' investigations and comparisons of annual trends in the causes of/motives for suicide in light of the impact of social issues, and they will greatly diminish the utility of those statistics. The institutions that were involved in the revision must clearly explain their intentions...

Language: en