The effect of meteorological variables on suicide
- PDF / 401,488 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 68 Downloads / 196 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
The effect of meteorological variables on suicide Selvi Kayipmaz 1
&
Ishak San 2
&
Eren Usul 3
&
Semih Korkut 4
Received: 30 January 2020 / Revised: 20 April 2020 / Accepted: 12 May 2020 # ISB 2020
Abstract We aimed to reveal the relationship between the meteorological variables and suicide rates (completed suicides and suicide attempts) independently of the seasonal cycle and holiday effects. This is an observational retrospective study. We collected the data on age, gender, and suicide method of all suicide cases transferred to hospitals from the scene by emergency medical services as well as those cases in which the victim died on the scene between January 1, 2017 and June 30, 2019. We also collected data on maximum, minimum, and average temperatures (°C), average humidity (%), and average actual pressure (hPa) measured daily in Ankara. The total number of cases due to suicide between the given dates was 6777. The suicide method in 60.1% of the cases was drug poisoning, which was the most common suicide method. Investigating the effect of meteorological variables on suicide cases (suicide attempts and completed suicides), the present study found that after smoothing the effect of the day of the week and seasonality, an increase in the minimum temperature on the day of the application by 1 unit (1°C degree) leads to an increase in the number of suicides by 0.01 point (0.01 ± 0.005, p = 0.046). There was no significant change in the variables other than the minimum temperature. We believe that the results of the present study will contribute to growing body literature about the epidemiology of suicide. We also believe that there is a need for large-scale studies that include individual data to reveal causality.
Introduction It was reported that suicide rates, a major public health concern, varied not only because of the characteristics of the individual involved but also because of seasonal and climatic variables (Vyssoki et al. 2014; Preti 1997). Various studies demonstrated that suicide rates were higher in spring and summer months than in winter and autumn months (Preti 1997; Christodoulou et al. 2012; White et al. 2015). Sunshine duration, temperature, atmospheric pressure, rainfall, and humidity were the meteorological variables whose relationship with suicide rates was investigated (Vyssoki et al. 2014; Kurokouchi et al. 2015). Prior studies showed that climatic variables influenced the frequencies of both
* Selvi Kayipmaz [email protected] 1
Baskent University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Ankara, Turkey
2
Provincial Health Directorate of Ankara, Director of Emergency Medical Services, Ankara, Turkey
3
Provincial Health Directorate of Ankara, Deputy Director of Emergency Medical Services, Ankara, Turkey
4
Ministry of Health of Turkey, General Director of Emergency Medical Services, Ankara, Turkey
suicide attempts and completed suicides (Vyssoki et al. 2014; Kurokouchi et al. 2015; Akkaya-Kalayci et al. 2017; Doganay et al. 2003). In a study (Deisenhamm
Data Loading...
