Suicide After and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Mexico City

Abstract

Background: A first report on the short-term effects of COVID-19 pandemic on death by suicide, that included data from Mexico City, suggested that no increase in suicide was apparent immediately following the declaration of emergency. We followed up this initial analysis by adding longer-term suicide trends from Mexico City and by inspecting basic demographic groups. Methods: We used an interrupted time-series analysis to model the trend in monthly suicides before COVID-19 (from Jan 1, 2010, to March 31, 2020), comparing the expected number of suicides derived from the model with the observed number of suicides in the following months of the pandemic (from April 1 to November 30, 2020). Findings: The number of monthly suicides changed from 30·2 to 30·9. There was an increase in suicide during the first 8 months of the pandemic, with a RR of 1·74 (1·37-2·20). Most of the increase occurred beyond June 2020, when there was an increase of about 70% that was then maintained. The increase was mostly accounted for by male residents of Mexico City, regardless of their age 1·95 (1·51-2·52). Overall, there was no change in the number of female suicides but those in the older age group should be closely monitored (RR=2·00; 0·96-3·68). Interpretation: The increase in suicides by male residents of Mexico City is worrying and reinforces the need to strengthen actions for economic development, mental health and wellbeing. As the city is widening primary health care services and interventions there is an opportunity to include suicide prevention and treatment.Funding Information: No funding was used for this manuscript.Declaration of Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Ethics Approval Statement: The Ethical Committee of the National Institute of Psychiatry cleared this work for ethical approval.