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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: The National Suicide Surveillance System (NSSS), launched in Taiwan in 2006, is a structured nationwide intervention program for people who survived their suicide attempts. The study examined the accumulated data of the NSSS from 2006 to 2022 to investigate the trends of the demographics, causes of attempt and suicide methods across seventeen years.
METHODS: We collected longitudinal dataset from the NSSS across 17 years and performed descriptive and correlational statistics. Suicide attempt reporting ratio was calculated through numbers of reported attempts (excluding death) dividing by suicide deaths numbers; gender ratios were counted via female to male ratio of suicide attempts. We further assessed the correlation between causes and methods of suicide by gender.
RESULTS: In total, 518, 174 reported attempts (65.05 % females) were recruited for analysis. Firstly, the number of attempts increased with years. The updated number of attempts in 2022 was 45,366, featuring the climbing attention by the public. The suicide attempt reporting ratios kept escalating with a range between 4.2 and 11.4, indicating the society's efforts of suicide reporting to the government as a whole. The females outnumbered the males in attempts by about 1.68-2.05 times, the gender ratios remained relatively steady over the years. A majority of attempts occurred in the young and middle-aged groups (i.e., 25-34, 35-44, and 15-24.) The increasing trend of the 15-24 group outnumbered the others and became the highest in the number of attempts since 2019. Secondly, solid/liquid substance (39.3-6-60.1%) or wrist cutting (24.2- 31.7%) were the major methods. The decreasing trend of solid/liquid substance was accompanied by the increasing trend of wrist cutting, falling from height, and others. Moreover, emotional/relational issues or mental health problems/substance abuse were two main causes of attempts. The rates of overall causes were steady between 2013 and 2022. Finally, among the total 518,174 attempts, gender difference in presentation of suicide causes was observed as female predominance in emotional/relational problems (49.5% vs 35.7%) and the choice of solid/liquid substance (53.6% vs 43.0%); male predominance in work/economics and physical illnesses.
CONCLUSIONS: The accumulated data from the NSSS indicated a comprehensive profile and trends of demographics and causes and method choice across the 17 years and provided an empirical basis for developing pertinent prevention strategies.
Language: en |