Suicide – definition of the phenomenon and prevalence in Poland

Abstract

Introduction: Suicide is a serious world public health problem and still an interesting, controversial and difficult subject for theoretical and empirical considerations. Aim: The aim of this paper is to present the prevalence of suicide in Poland in context of suicidal situation worldwide. Material and methods: This article is based on the available literature, National Polish Headquarters reports and World Health Organization data. Results and discussion: Many publications on suicide to date focus on showing the correlation between the suicide act and age, gender, social background, education, place of residence, marital status, season, climate, day of the week, and even a daily cycle. Profiles of a potential suicide are created. Suicide is the most serious cause of death among patients with mental disorders. However, scientific reports among people who commit suicide and attempt suicide also mention people, who are not mentally ill. There is no medical suicide reporting and analysis system in Poland. The National Police Headquarters publish annual report containing the number of suicides committed in Poland. Conclusions: Based on these statistics, from 1999 to 2018, we observe a variable level of suicide rates. In the discussed years 1999–2018 over 95,000 people have successfully committed suicide in our country. Poland is currently in second place in Europe in terms of juvenile suicides and one of the European countries where the gender disparity (advantage of men over women) in terms of suicides is the highest.