Citation

Amiri H, Rezapour M, Nakhaee N, Nekoei-Moghadam M, Jahani Y, Moslehi S. Minerva Psychiatry 2022; 63(1): 61-67.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022)

DOI

10.23736/S2724-6612.21.02173-4

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mental health problems are one of the most important issues after earthquakes. The mental health problems of earthquakes have various dimensions, and one of them is suicide. The present study aims to evaluate the long-term impact of an earthquake (17 years) on suicide rates in people who experienced the Bam earthquake in 2003.

METHODS: Our data were collected from a historical cohort study conducted among survivors of the Bam earthquake. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to collect data. The instrument used for the evaluation of thoughts and attempt suicide was extracted from the Iranian Mental Health Survey and to measure post-traumatic growth, PTGI_SF was used, and to measure post-traumatic stress disorder, a 4-item short questionnaire was used. Because the suicide attempt variable was dichotomous, the method used was binary logistic regression analysis, estimating two-level random intercept models using Mplus 7.4.

RESULTS: The results showed that suicide attempt was significantly associated with having exposure with earthquake (OR=4.26, 95%cI: 1.24-14.63), single participants (OR=3.15, Ic1.27-7.79), and having death in relatives (OR=0.45, 95%CI: 0.24-0.81) in individual level, and a significant association with contextual PTG in community level (OR=0.77, 95%cI: 0.68-0.87).

CONCLUSIONS: The suicide attempt is a significant consequence of mental health 17 years after the Bam earthquake. These results suggest that suicide can be a long-term consequence of mental health. Targeted long-term suicide prevention programs and considering the role of post-traumatic growth need to be further developed. © 2022 by the authors.

Language: en

Keywords

adult; human; mental health; suicide; Suicide; female; male; Earthquake; Psychological; earthquake; sampling; education; suicide attempt; posttraumatic stress disorder; community; death; major clinical study; controlled study; questionnaire; normal human; socioeconomics; marriage; human experiment; mental health service; health care personnel; information processing; survivor; cross-sectional study; relative; perception; cohort analysis; logistic regression analysis; probability; Stress disorders; cluster analysis; household; hyperactivity; Article; validity; internal consistency; Post-traumatic; Posttraumatic growth; Likert scale; posttraumatic growth (psychology)