Suicide rates have increased in Japan since onset of pandemic
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The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with an increase in suicide rates in Japan, according to results of a cross-sectional study published in JAMA Network Open.
“Much concern has been raised regarding the effects of the pandemic on mental health,” Peter Ueda, MD, PhD, of the department of global health policy at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine, told Healio Psychiatry. “It has been suggested that suicide rates might increase as a result of heightened economic stress, decreased human contact and exacerbations of preexisting mental health conditions. Against this background, we assessed suicide rates in Japan during the pandemic vs. previous years.”
Ueda and colleagues analyzed national data included in the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare between 2016 to 2020 on the monthly number of individuals who died of suicide in Japan from January to November of 2016 to 2020. 2020 vs. previous years served as the exposure. Monthly suicide rates, calculated as the number of individuals who died of suicide divided by the total population, served as the main outcome. The researchers estimated the change in monthly suicide rates between April 2020 and November 2020 vs. the same months in 2016 to 2019 using a difference-indifference regression model. They included data of 90,048 individuals who died of suicide between 2016 and 2020 in the analyses.
Results showed that men exhibited no increase in suicide rates between April 2020 and September 2020 vs. these months in 2016 to 2019; however, suicide rates increased in October and November. Suicide rates in 2020 vs. in 2016 to 2019 for women increased in July, August, September, October and November. Secondary analyses that compared the suicide rates of 2020 with the expected rates according to trends from 2011 to 2019 revealed that men aged younger than 30 years, as well as women aged younger than 30 years and 30 to 49 years, had the most pronounced increases in suicide rates.
“At least in Japan, the pandemic and measures taken to mitigate it seems to be associated with increased suicide rates, in particular among women and younger adults,” Sakamoto said. “The findings are of obvious public health relevance; however, as is the case with any study of population-level outcomes, they may not necessarily constitute actionable data for clinicians in their care of individual patients.”