Demographic Risk Factors for Suicide among Youths in The Netherlands.

Guus Berkelmans,Renske Gilissen,Rob Van Der Mei,Sandjai Bhulai,Saskia Merelle

doi:10.3390/ijerph17041182

Abstract

In 2000 to 2016 the highest number of suicides among Dutch youths under 20 in any given year was 58 in 2013. In 2017 this number increased to 81 youth suicides. To get more insight in what types of youths died by suicide, particularly in recent years (2013–2017) we looked at micro-data of Statistics Netherlands and counted suicides among youths till 23, split out along gender, age, regions, immigration background and place in household and compared this to the general population of youths in the Netherlands. We also compared the demographics of young suicide victims to those of suicide victims among the population as a whole. We found higher suicide rates among male youths, older youths, those of Dutch descent and youths living alone. These differences were generally smaller than in the population as a whole. There were also substantial geographical differences between provinces and healthcare regions. The method of suicide is different in youth compared to the population as a whole: relatively more youth suicides by jumping or lying in front of a moving object and relatively less youth suicides by autointoxication or drowning, whereas the most frequent method of suicide among both groups is hanging or suffocation.

Highlights

Suicide is the number-one cause of death among youths from the age of 10 till the age of 30 in the Netherlands
To get a better understanding of socio-demographic risk factors on youth suicides, the first aim of this study is to look at suicides among all the youths from 10 up till 23 in the Netherlands
We observe that yearly among youths under 23 roughly 1.5 to 2 times as many males than females died by suicide in the period 2013–2017 (Table 1), 331 male youths and 170 female youths, with the number of males varying more than the number of females

Summary

Introduction

Suicide is the number-one cause of death among youths from the age of 10 till the age of 30 in the Netherlands. Several risk factors have been identified that lead to youth suicidal behavior, such as previous suicide attempts, feeling hopeless or depressed, alcohol abuse, social isolation and others [1,2,3,4,5]. Most of these risk factors are psychological and behavioral in nature and require a more in-depth look at the individual, and even they might be hard to observe. A substantial number of studies into demographic characteristics of suicidal behavior have been done These generally had limited non-random samples and yielded limited results [6].

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