Citation

John A, Eyles E, Webb RT, Okolie C, Schmidt L, Arensman E, Hawton K, O'Connor RC, Kapur N, Moran P, O'Neill S, McGuinness LA, Olorisade BK, Dekel D, Macleod-Hall C, Cheng HY, Higgins JPT, Gunnell D. F1000Res. 2021; 9: 1-44.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, F1000 Research)

DOI

10.12688/F1000RESEARCH.25522.2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused considerable morbidity, mortality and disruption to people's lives around the world. There are concerns that rates of suicide and suicidal behaviour may rise during and in its aftermath. Our living systematic review synthesises findings from emerging literature on incidence and prevalence of suicidal behaviour as well as suicide prevention efforts in relation to COVID-19, with this iteration synthesising relevant evidence up to 19th October 2020.

METHOD: Automated daily searches feed into a web-based database with screening and data extraction functionalities. Eligibility criteria include incidence/prevalence of suicidal behaviour, exposure-outcomerelationships and effects of interventions in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outcomes of interest are suicide, self-harm or attempted suicide and suicidal thoughts. No restrictions are placed on language or study type, except for single-person case reports. We exclude oneoff cross-sectional studies without either pre-pandemic measures or comparisons of COVID-19 positive vs. unaffected individuals.

RESULTS: Searches identified 6,226 articles. Seventy-eight articles met our inclusion criteria. We identified a further 64 relevant crosssectional studies that did not meet our revised inclusion criteria. Thirty-four articles were not peer-reviewed (e.g. research letters, preprints). All articles were based on observational studies.There was no consistent evidence of a rise in suicide but many studies noted adverse economic effects were evolving. There was evidence of a rise in community distress, fall in hospital presentation for suicidal behaviour and early evidence of an increased frequency of suicidal thoughts in those who had become infected with COVID-19.

CONCLUSIONS: Research evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on suicidal behaviour is accumulating rapidly. This living review provides a regular synthesis of the most up-to-date research evidence to guide public health and clinical policy to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on suicide risk as the longer term impacts of the pandemic on suicide risk are researched © 2021. John A et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Language: en

Keywords

human; mental health; COVID-19; Suicide; systematic review; preventive medicine; suicidal ideation; prevalence; Suicidal thoughts; pandemic; public health; suicide attempt; suicidal behavior; social isolation; Attempted suicide; health care policy; automutilation; social status; demography; meta analysis; ethnic difference; evidence based medicine; qualitative analysis; risk reduction; neuropsychological test; Article; outcome assessment; coronavirus disease 2019; Living systematic review; Selfharm