Citation

Bille-Brahe U. Nord. J. Psychiatry 1997; 51(5): 339-349.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.3109/08039489709090728

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

On the basis of printouts of the Danish Central Death Register compiled by the National Board of Health, the frequencies of the three types of death diagnoses stated on the death certificate (the underlying, the secondary, and the tertiary cause of death) have been calculated for all deaths registered as suicide during a period of 22 years. In addition, samples of death certificates have been scrutinized. Analyses showed that the number of suicides registered under a psychiatric diagnosis decreased during the period from 76% to 59% for males and from 79% to 66% for females. For both males and females, the most frequent psychiatric diagnosis was non-classifiable psychoses; for males the second most frequent diagnosis was alcoholism, and for females manic depression, closely followed by alcoholism. The suitability of using death certificates and cause-of-death statistics only as basis for studying death diagnoses among suicides is critically discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

Death diagnoses; Psychiatric diseases; Suicide