[A cross-sectional study of suicide attempt reports in Colombia during the covid-19 pandemic].

Abstract

Objective: To characterize the population that reports cases of attempted suicide during the confinement period and immediate post-confinement in Colombia according to the official reports collected by the epidemiological surveillance system of the National Institute of Health (Sivigila) and to determine if there are patterns of presentation and variations concerning the characteristics of the population that reported cases in 2019.

Methods: A serial cross-sectional descriptive observational study and multiple correspondence analysis on epidemiological surveillance sheets of "suicide attempts" collected in Colombia from March 25 to December 31, 2020, and during the same period in 2019.

Results: 42,102 reports of "Attempted Suicide" were analyzed (23,745 in 2019 and 18,357 in 2020), and there was a reduction in approximately 23% of the number of reports in the year 2020 compared to the year 2019. In addition, patterns of presence were found considering the sociodemographic characteristics of the reporters, but no differences were identified between the annual periods studied.

Conclusions: Although in the year 2020, there was a reduction in the number of official reports collected of "suicide attempts", it cannot be affirmed that there was an effective decrease in cases of this event in the country.