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Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide

Suicide is one of the ten most common causes of death in the world. Of all deaths from suicide, 22% can be attributed to the use of alcohol, which means that every fifth suicide would not occur if alcohol were not consumed by the population. People under the influence of alcohol choose more radical...

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Autores principales: Lasota, Dorota, Al-Wathinani, Ahmed, Krajewski, Paweł, Mirowska-Guzel, Dagmara, Goniewicz, Krzysztof, Hertelendy, Attila J., Alhazmi, Riyadh A., Pawłowski, Witold, Khorram-Manesh, Amir, Goniewicz, Mariusz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578964/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32987939
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197003
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author Lasota, Dorota
Al-Wathinani, Ahmed
Krajewski, Paweł
Mirowska-Guzel, Dagmara
Goniewicz, Krzysztof
Hertelendy, Attila J.
Alhazmi, Riyadh A.
Pawłowski, Witold
Khorram-Manesh, Amir
Goniewicz, Mariusz
author_facet Lasota, Dorota
Al-Wathinani, Ahmed
Krajewski, Paweł
Mirowska-Guzel, Dagmara
Goniewicz, Krzysztof
Hertelendy, Attila J.
Alhazmi, Riyadh A.
Pawłowski, Witold
Khorram-Manesh, Amir
Goniewicz, Mariusz
author_sort Lasota, Dorota
collection PubMed
description Suicide is one of the ten most common causes of death in the world. Of all deaths from suicide, 22% can be attributed to the use of alcohol, which means that every fifth suicide would not occur if alcohol were not consumed by the population. People under the influence of alcohol choose more radical and effective methods of dying by suicide, e.g., throwing themselves under a moving vehicle, such as a train. The presented analysis aimed to determine important risk factors affecting railway suicide in Poland and their relation to the state of alcohol intoxication of the victims, and the relationship between ethyl alcohol consumption and the phenomenon of suicide. Documentation obtained from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Warsaw, in the form of death registers and forensic medical records concerning examination and autopsy, was analyzed. This made it possible to identify suicide victims from among pedestrian victims of railway accidents recorded during the period under study. The research was carried out using unidimensional and multidimensional statistical analyses with IBM SPSS Statistics, version 25. Sober suicide victims were statistically significantly older than victims under the influence of alcohol; alcohol concentration was correlated with the age of the victims—the older the victims were, the higher the alcohol concentration. A significantly higher number of deaths attributed to suicide by sober victims was observed in autumn compared to other seasons. Multidimensional analysis showed a statistically significant effect of age and season on the probability of dying by suicide under the influence of alcohol—this probability decreases with the age of the victims and is also significantly lower in autumn. The observed relationship between age and the presence of alcohol in suicide victims can be the cause of railway suicides. Knowledge of the mechanisms of seasonal variability of suicidal behavior can help to develop effective strategies to prevent railway suicides. It is necessary to improve the system of reporting railway suicides, as only reliable statistics provide the possibility of assessing both the scale of the problem and the effectiveness of actions taken.
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spelling pubmed-75789642020-10-29 Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide Lasota, Dorota Al-Wathinani, Ahmed Krajewski, Paweł Mirowska-Guzel, Dagmara Goniewicz, Krzysztof Hertelendy, Attila J. Alhazmi, Riyadh A. Pawłowski, Witold Khorram-Manesh, Amir Goniewicz, Mariusz Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Suicide is one of the ten most common causes of death in the world. Of all deaths from suicide, 22% can be attributed to the use of alcohol, which means that every fifth suicide would not occur if alcohol were not consumed by the population. People under the influence of alcohol choose more radical and effective methods of dying by suicide, e.g., throwing themselves under a moving vehicle, such as a train. The presented analysis aimed to determine important risk factors affecting railway suicide in Poland and their relation to the state of alcohol intoxication of the victims, and the relationship between ethyl alcohol consumption and the phenomenon of suicide. Documentation obtained from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Medical University of Warsaw, in the form of death registers and forensic medical records concerning examination and autopsy, was analyzed. This made it possible to identify suicide victims from among pedestrian victims of railway accidents recorded during the period under study. The research was carried out using unidimensional and multidimensional statistical analyses with IBM SPSS Statistics, version 25. Sober suicide victims were statistically significantly older than victims under the influence of alcohol; alcohol concentration was correlated with the age of the victims—the older the victims were, the higher the alcohol concentration. A significantly higher number of deaths attributed to suicide by sober victims was observed in autumn compared to other seasons. Multidimensional analysis showed a statistically significant effect of age and season on the probability of dying by suicide under the influence of alcohol—this probability decreases with the age of the victims and is also significantly lower in autumn. The observed relationship between age and the presence of alcohol in suicide victims can be the cause of railway suicides. Knowledge of the mechanisms of seasonal variability of suicidal behavior can help to develop effective strategies to prevent railway suicides. It is necessary to improve the system of reporting railway suicides, as only reliable statistics provide the possibility of assessing both the scale of the problem and the effectiveness of actions taken. MDPI 2020-09-24 2020-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7578964/ /pubmed/32987939 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197003 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lasota, Dorota
Al-Wathinani, Ahmed
Krajewski, Paweł
Mirowska-Guzel, Dagmara
Goniewicz, Krzysztof
Hertelendy, Attila J.
Alhazmi, Riyadh A.
Pawłowski, Witold
Khorram-Manesh, Amir
Goniewicz, Mariusz
Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide
title Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide
title_full Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide
title_fullStr Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide
title_full_unstemmed Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide
title_short Alcohol and the Risk of Railway Suicide
title_sort alcohol and the risk of railway suicide
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578964/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32987939
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17197003
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