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Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

BACKGROUND: Major sporting events are postulated to reduce suicide rates by increased social connectedness, by identifying with winning teams, or, conversely, to increase suicide rates by the ‘broken promise effect’. METHODS: In our observational epidemiological study, we investigated changes in sui...

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Autores principales: Pichler, Eva-Maria, Ploederl, Martin, Rainer, Lucas, Gilhofer, Thomas S, Michel, Jonathan, van der Stouwe, Jan Gerrit, Luescher, Thomas F, Schmied, Christian M, Kawohl, Wolfram, Kronschnabel, Jens, Niederseer, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10234653/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36940682
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckad042
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author Pichler, Eva-Maria
Ploederl, Martin
Rainer, Lucas
Gilhofer, Thomas S
Michel, Jonathan
van der Stouwe, Jan Gerrit
Luescher, Thomas F
Schmied, Christian M
Kawohl, Wolfram
Kronschnabel, Jens
Niederseer, David
author_facet Pichler, Eva-Maria
Ploederl, Martin
Rainer, Lucas
Gilhofer, Thomas S
Michel, Jonathan
van der Stouwe, Jan Gerrit
Luescher, Thomas F
Schmied, Christian M
Kawohl, Wolfram
Kronschnabel, Jens
Niederseer, David
author_sort Pichler, Eva-Maria
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Major sporting events are postulated to reduce suicide rates by increased social connectedness, by identifying with winning teams, or, conversely, to increase suicide rates by the ‘broken promise effect’. METHODS: In our observational epidemiological study, we investigated changes in suicide rates between 1970 and 2017 in Austria, Germany and Switzerland during the European and World Soccer Championships in general, and on days that the home team played, won or lost. RESULTS: Combining all three studied nations no statistically significant change in the incidence of daily suicides during soccer championships compared to a control period was noted (38.29 ± 9.02 vs. 37.33 ± 10.58; incidence risk ratio = 1.03; 95% confidence interval: 1.01–1.05, P = 0.05). Essentially, no differences in the expected directions were found, and none remained statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons in subgroups for country, age and gender in all three studied countries. Compared to a control period, neither a significant difference in the respective national suicide rate was found after Germany’s four championship victories nor after Austria’s emotional only win over Germany. CONCLUSION: Our results do not support the assumption of increased social connectedness and, thus, lowered suicide risk during major sporting events or changes in suicide risk depending on the outcome of important games as predicted by the broken promise effect or changes in self-efficacy by identification with winning teams.
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spelling pubmed-102346532023-06-02 Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland Pichler, Eva-Maria Ploederl, Martin Rainer, Lucas Gilhofer, Thomas S Michel, Jonathan van der Stouwe, Jan Gerrit Luescher, Thomas F Schmied, Christian M Kawohl, Wolfram Kronschnabel, Jens Niederseer, David Eur J Public Health Mental Health BACKGROUND: Major sporting events are postulated to reduce suicide rates by increased social connectedness, by identifying with winning teams, or, conversely, to increase suicide rates by the ‘broken promise effect’. METHODS: In our observational epidemiological study, we investigated changes in suicide rates between 1970 and 2017 in Austria, Germany and Switzerland during the European and World Soccer Championships in general, and on days that the home team played, won or lost. RESULTS: Combining all three studied nations no statistically significant change in the incidence of daily suicides during soccer championships compared to a control period was noted (38.29 ± 9.02 vs. 37.33 ± 10.58; incidence risk ratio = 1.03; 95% confidence interval: 1.01–1.05, P = 0.05). Essentially, no differences in the expected directions were found, and none remained statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons in subgroups for country, age and gender in all three studied countries. Compared to a control period, neither a significant difference in the respective national suicide rate was found after Germany’s four championship victories nor after Austria’s emotional only win over Germany. CONCLUSION: Our results do not support the assumption of increased social connectedness and, thus, lowered suicide risk during major sporting events or changes in suicide risk depending on the outcome of important games as predicted by the broken promise effect or changes in self-efficacy by identification with winning teams. Oxford University Press 2023-03-20 /pmc/articles/PMC10234653/ /pubmed/36940682 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckad042 Text en © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Mental Health
Pichler, Eva-Maria
Ploederl, Martin
Rainer, Lucas
Gilhofer, Thomas S
Michel, Jonathan
van der Stouwe, Jan Gerrit
Luescher, Thomas F
Schmied, Christian M
Kawohl, Wolfram
Kronschnabel, Jens
Niederseer, David
Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
title Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
title_full Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
title_fullStr Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
title_full_unstemmed Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
title_short Alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in Austria, Germany and Switzerland
title_sort alive and kicking: suicide rates and major soccer events in austria, germany and switzerland
topic Mental Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10234653/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36940682
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckad042
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