Citation

Schmidtke A, Weinacker B, Löhr C. Psycho 2002; 28(11-12): 578-588.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics (Statistisches Bundesamt) 8145 men and 2934 women committed suicide in the year 2000 in Germany. The rate of suicides (suicides per 100.000 inhabitants) amounted to 20.28 for men and 6.97 for women. The highest suicide rates for men were found in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The highest figures for women were found in Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein. The probability of committing suicide increases for men and women significantly with age. Since the middle of the 1970 the suicide rates decreased in all age groups However, one can hypothesize that particularly suicides of elderly people are not always recognized, since "soft methods" are often used by elderly (for example taking an overdose or too few of a prescribed drug). These methods cannot easily be detected. Often those kinds of deaths are assigned to the category "unknown causes of death". Thus the actual decrease of the suicide rates within the older age groups is perhaps not so pronounced as the statistical data indicates. The paper describes the causes, treatment and costs of suicides and suicide attempts as well as methods for prevention.

Language: de

Keywords

adult; aged; aging; cost benefit analysis; data analysis; drug overdose; female; Germany; human; major clinical study; male; prevalence; recognition; review; statistical analysis; suicide; suicide attempt