Irish Suicide Research Articles

Client personal recovery and recovery orientation of an Irish suicide intervention charity - Corrigendum.

Client personal recovery and recovery orientation of an Irish suicide intervention charity - Corrigendum.

Client personal recovery and recovery orientation of an Irish suicide intervention charity.

Recovery is a key goal for individuals, and services' recovery orientation can facilitate this process. The independent mental health sector is increasingly important in Ireland, particularly in counselling and suicide prevention. We aimed to evaluate Pieta House as a recovery-oriented service through clients' self-rated recovery; and clients' and therapists' evaluation of the service. Clients completing therapy over a 3-month period were invited to complete the Recovery Assessment Scale (RAS) and the Recovery Self Assessment-Revised (RSA-R). Therapists completed the RSA-R staff version. Response rate was 36.7% for clients (n=88), 98% for therapists (n=49). Personal recovery was endorsed by 73.8% of clients, with highest agreement for factors 'Willingness to Ask for Help' (84.5%), and 'Reliance on Others' (82.1%). A smaller number agreed with factors 'Personal Confidence and Hope' (61.3%) and 'No Domination by Symptoms' (66.6%). Clients' and therapists' evaluation of the service showed high levels of agreement with factors of 'Choice' (90.9% clients, 100% therapists); 'Life Goals' (84.1% clients, 98% therapists) and 'Individually Tailored Services' (80.6% clients, 79.6% therapists). Client involvement in service management had the lowest level of agreement (36.4% clients, 30.6% therapists). Clients' self-rated recovery correlated with their rating of the service (correlation value 0.993, p=0.01). Clients' self-rated recovery and the recovery orientation of Pieta House were rated highly, with areas for improvement in service user involvement, peer support and advocacy. The correlation of personal recovery and recovery orientation of the service may merit further study.

Effect of the First World War on suicide rates in Ireland: an investigation of the 1864-1921 suicide trends.

SummarySince the proposition of the social integration theory by Émile Durkheim, macro-sociological changes have been speculated to affect suicide rates. This study investigates the effect of the First World War on Irish suicide rates. We applied an interrupted time series design of 1864–1921 annual Irish suicide rates. The 1864–1913 suicide rates exhibited a slow-rising trend with a sharp decline from the year 1914 onwards. The odds for death by suicide for males during the 1914–1918 period was 0.811 (95% CI 0.768–0.963). Irish rates of suicide were significantly reduced during the First World War, most notably for males.Declaration of interestNone.Copyright and usage© 2015 The Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

Suicide in Ireland: a cross-national view.

Recent epidemiological trends in Irish suicide rates were examined and found to be consistent with worldwide trends. However, the time-series Irish suicide rate was not consistent with predictions made from Durkheim's classic theory of suicide. Finally, current theories of the etiology of suicide were used to derive a linear regression equation to predict the Irish suicide rate which turned out to be quite inaccurate. The task addressed in this article is a review of the epidemiology of suicide in Ireland and, in doing so, the suicide rate in Ireland will be compared with the suicide rates of other nations of the world. Table 1 reports the suicide rate in Ireland from 1901 to 1949, Table 2 for the period 1950-2001, overall and for men and women (and parallel data for Northern Ireland are shown in Table 3). These data were compiled from Lester and Yang and from World Health Organisation publications and online (www.who.int). It should be noted that suicide was decriminalised in Ireland in 1993.

A Study of the Irish System of Recording Suicide Deaths

A Study of the Irish System of Recording Suicide Deaths

Suicide and the reluctance of young men to use mental health services.

Young men are grossly over represented in Irish suicide statistics, yet this group is the least likely to use mental health services. This paper outlines why young men are reluctant to access mental health services, framing the problem in the context of risk factors for suicide such as binge drinking and social change. The paper argues that de-stigmatising mental illness and encouraging young men to seek help for emotional problems should be a priority for policymakers.

Temporal Variation in Irish Suicide Rates

Using Irish suicide data for the period 1990-1998, the independent effects of month and day adjusting for age, gender, and calendar year effects and distinguishing between holiday and working Mondays were assessed. The male suicide rate was significantly higher on working Mondays (+31%) and Saturdays (+14%), and during April, June, and August (+17%), after adjustment for the other variables. In contrast, female suicide rates were higher only in August (+35%) and exhibited no day effect. Teenage men had a greater elevation of risk on Saturdays, Sundays, and both working and holiday Mondays than any other group. The study findings should be taken into account in the planning of specialized health care services and helplines for suicidal people. Furthermore, the findings provide support for Gabennesch's (1988) broken promise theory and the relationship between dysfunctions of the serotonergic system and suicidal behavior.

Differences in Irish Urban and Rural Suicide Rates, 1976–1994

The recent rise in the Irish suicide rate is a male phenomenon. The present paper calculates urban and rural suicide rates for Ireland and looks at some possible explanatory variables for the differences observed. Irish suicide and undetermined death rates, age-adjusted to the European Standard Population, are calculated for the years 1976 to 1994 to determine if there are any discernible trends between urban and rural areas. Possible associated factors are then examined, including the distribution of psychiatric illness using the National Psychiatric In-Patient Reporting Scheme. Between 1980 and 1990, the Irish rural male suicide rate rose by 50% while there was no increase in the male urban rate. The most radical increases have occurred in the young and elderly rural males. A. t the start of the study period, the urban female suicide rate was higher than the rural rate but the two rates have been almost identical since 1985. Some factors associated with suicide were examined but failed to provide sufficient explanation for the difference in rates. Further research is needed to clarify the reasons for these differences and to monitor ongoing trends.

Suicide rates in Irish counties: 10 years later.

This exploratory study was designed to explore the social correlates of suicides rates of Irish counties. Suicide rates were calculated for Irish counties and subdivisions for the period 1988-1994 and correlated with social data for these regions obtained from the 1991 Census. The suicide rates showed a low level of reliability for the periods 1978-1984 and 1988-1994, and the social correlates of suicide rates changed between the two periods. Whereas age structure was associated with suicide rates in 1978-1984, urbanisation was associated with suicide rates in 1988-1994. It is important to check the reliability of results of ecological studies of Irish suicide rates. Furthermore, the impact on suicide rates of the changing role of women in Ireland needs to be explored in time-series studies of the Irish suicide rate.

Under-reporting of suicide in Ireland 1960-1989

World Health -on suicide data 1960-1989 were examined by sex and age to clarify under-reporting of Irish suicide. Three broad age groups (15-29, 30-54 and 55+ years) were combined with 3 year moving averages to reduce annual fluctuations. Trends were compared with three neighbouring British nations whose major trends might be expected to broadly parallel Irish trends. Marked rises across all age/sex groups were found for Ireland but generally not the other countries. The Irish rises commenced uniformly around 1971/72 and were followed by a striking partial levelling out around 1976/8. The uniformity of the Irish suicide rate rises strongly points to a common factor(s) operating across all age/sex groups - most likely changes in reporting of suicide. Significant rises unrelated to reporting changes Seem evident in males of all ages but not females. Data from 1978 onward is likely to be more valid than earlier data.

Suicide in Ireland -1982 to 1992

During the period of 1982 to 1992 there were 3.142 official deaths by suicide in Inland. The Irish suicide rate is now rising to such an extent that it officially threatens to surpass road traffic accidents as the major cause of death. Unofficially, this may already be the case, yet there exists little collated information regarding these people. This paper attempts to rectify this question by examining all officially recorded suicide deaths that occurred in Ireland during the years mentioned by age, sex, marital status, method, socio-economic grouping and occupation. This paper provides a profile of those who have died through suicide and identifies possible high-risk groups within Irish society that seem to be more prone to suicide.

Suicide: Some ethical implications

Death faces us all. Preoccupation with it however is commonly regarded as morbid. As a way of dying, suicide is seen as being abnormal. This is certainly so in a statistical sense. In 1993, there were 31,896 deaths in the Republic of Ireland of which officially 357 were suicides. This means that approximately one in a hundred deaths today are self-inflicted. The proportion of suicide deaths to other deaths varies across age groups, however. Generally speaking among the young, suicide is a more common cause of death because other types of death are less common. In the past the official Irish suicide figures may have under-estimated the true picture. Recent research however has shown that the official Irish suicide statistics are likely not to underestimate the true rate and are also more likely to be reliable than are the equivalent statistics from England and Wales.The word ‘abnormal’, however, in medicine is also used in a nonstatistical sense to imply deviation from the ideal or desirable. If we say someone is abnormal, we imply that he is either mentally ill or suffering from a defect or blemish of personality. Most people assume that those who intentionally end their lives are abnormal in this latter medical sense, immediately prior to death. The opposite holds in murder. Society assumes the perpetrator is not mentally ill unless evidence is brought forward to the contrary. Not all believe this, however, and some actively canvass the viewpoint that suicide, in certain circumstances, is to be encouraged.

Suicide rates in Ireland.

From a total of 410 post-mortem examinations on Galway residents deceased in 1978 the examining pathologist and 3 psychiatrists were in close agreement in 22 cases that death was by suicide. These figures were extrapolated, and a Republic of Ireland minimum true rate of suicide was computed which was 3 times greater than the official reported rate. Irish suicide data were found not to be dependent on coroners' reports as is commonly believed. It is concluded that under-reporting reduces Irish suicide rates to a far greater extent than has been supposed. The substitution of clinical for legalistic methods of recording suicide data is recommended.

Suicide in Dublin: I. The under-reporting of suicide and the consequences for national statistics.

This study of suicide in Dublin during 1964-1968 from coroners' records was undertaken to estimate the discrepancy between coroners' verdicts, the national suicide statistics compiled from them and the clinical assessment of probability of suicide by psychiatrists examining the same records. The large difference in numbers of suicides deriving from the two approaches has considerable implications for national suicide statistics, and these have been briefly considered. From the findings presented we believe that we are justified in concluding that: (a) there are real differences in national suicide rates, at least between Ireland, England and Wales, and Scotland, and (b) the Irish suicide rate is low, though not as low as official statistics suggest, and (c) the discrepancy between official and "true" suicide rates in Ireland is greater than in England and Wales and in Scotland.