Impact of suicide and COVID-19 in different countries: Epidemiological data for 2020

IF 2.5 4区医学 Q2 PSYCHIATRY

European Journal of Psychiatry Pub Date : 2025-07-19 DOI:10.1016/j.ejpsy.2025.100316

Jimena María Merayo-Cano , Alejandro Porras-Segovia , Luis Gutiérrez-Rojas , Enrique Baca-García

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background and Objectives

Suicide is a major public health problem. The number of years of potential life lost (YPLL) provides a complementary perspective for mortality assessment and health policy development. Previous studies have compared YPLL due to suicide with YPLL due to COVID-19 in the United States and Spain. However, no previous studies have explored these data worldwide to establish an adequate comparison. We believe that suicide deaths do not receive adequate attention when compared, for example, to deaths attributable to COVID-19. 1 In this case we have performed a comparative analysis of the years of life lost due to suicide and the pandemic, based on data that have been published in recent years. This study aims to quantify the global impact of suicide versus COVID-19 in terms of YPLL.

Methods

Our source was the World Health Organization mortality database as of September 2023. We included countries that had data on all-cause mortality for ages 0-75, presented by age groups in 2020. For suicide and COVID-19, YPLL and the percentage of YPLL over total causes of death were analyzed.

Results

In 10 out of 22 countries (45 %), YPLL due to suicide exceeded those due to COVID-19.

Conclusions

The countries where the impact of suicide was greater than that produced by COVID-19 were Australia and Germany. Although all countries in the world for which data was available were analyzed, Europe was the region with the highest representation. In the case of Europe, the world region with the largest number of countries for which data are available, half of the countries analyzed have a higher number of years of potential life lost as a result of suicide than those lost due to COVID-19, the disease that became one of the leading causes of death in record time, with devastating socio-economic impact and damage. It is necessary to raise awareness about the impact of suicide. Suicide prevention requires a coordinated effort worldwide.

查看原文本刊更多论文

自杀和COVID-19在不同国家的影响：2020年流行病学数据

背景与目的自杀是一个重大的公共卫生问题。潜在寿命损失年数（YPLL）为死亡率评估和卫生政策制定提供了补充视角。之前的研究比较了美国和西班牙因自杀导致的YPLL与因COVID-19导致的YPLL。然而，以前没有研究在全球范围内探索这些数据以建立充分的比较。我们认为，与COVID-19造成的死亡相比，自杀死亡没有得到足够的关注。在这种情况下，我们根据近年来发表的数据，对自杀和流行病造成的生命损失年数进行了比较分析。本研究旨在量化自杀与COVID-19在YPLL方面的全球影响。方法本研究来源为截至2023年9月的世界卫生组织死亡率数据库。我们纳入了拥有2020年0-75岁年龄组全因死亡率数据的国家。对于自杀和COVID-19，分析YPLL和YPLL占总死亡原因的百分比。结果在22个国家中，有10个国家（45%）因自杀导致的YPLL超过了因COVID-19导致的YPLL。结论自杀的影响大于新冠肺炎的国家是澳大利亚和德国。虽然对世界上所有可获得数据的国家进行了分析，但欧洲是代表性最高的区域。欧洲是世界上可获得数据的国家最多的区域，在所分析的国家中，有一半国家因自杀而损失的潜在寿命年数高于因COVID-19而损失的寿命年数，这种疾病在创纪录的时间内成为主要死亡原因之一，造成了毁灭性的社会经济影响和损害。有必要提高人们对自杀影响的认识。预防自杀需要全世界的协调努力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

European Journal of Psychiatry PSYCHIATRY-

CiteScore

2.90

自引率

0.00%

发文量

审稿时长

43 days

期刊介绍： The European journal of psychiatry is a quarterly publication founded in 1986 and directed by Professor Seva until his death in 2004. It was originally intended to report “the scientific activity of European psychiatrists” and “to bring about a greater degree of communication” among them. However, “since scientific knowledge has no geographical or cultural boundaries, is open to contributions from all over the world”. These principles are maintained in the new stage of the journal, now expanded with the help of an American editor.