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Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study

BACKGROUND: There is a concern that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an increase in suicides. Several reports from the first months of the pandemic showed no increase in suicide rates while studies with longer observation times report contrasting results. In this study, we explore the suicide rate...

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Autores principales: Stene-Larsen, K., Raknes, G., Engdahl, B., Qin, P., Mehlum, L., Strøm, M. S., Reneflot, A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9058441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35437137
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2022.17
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author Stene-Larsen, K.
Raknes, G.
Engdahl, B.
Qin, P.
Mehlum, L.
Strøm, M. S.
Reneflot, A.
author_facet Stene-Larsen, K.
Raknes, G.
Engdahl, B.
Qin, P.
Mehlum, L.
Strøm, M. S.
Reneflot, A.
author_sort Stene-Larsen, K.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a concern that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an increase in suicides. Several reports from the first months of the pandemic showed no increase in suicide rates while studies with longer observation times report contrasting results. In this study, we explore the suicide rates in Norway during the first year of the pandemic for the total population as well as for relevant subgroups such as sex, age, geographical areas, and pandemic phases. METHODS: This is a cohort study covering the entire Norwegian population between 2010 and 2020. The main outcome was age-standardized suicide rates (per 100,000 inhabitants) in 2020 according to the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry. This was compared with 95% prediction intervals (95% PI) based on the suicide rates between 2010 and 2019. RESULTS: In 2020, there were 639 suicides in Norway corresponding to a rate of 12.1 per 100,000 (95% PI 10.2–14.4). There were no significant deviations from the predicted values for suicides in 2020 when analyzing age, sex, pandemic phase, or geographical area separately. We observed a trend toward a lower than predicted suicide rate among females (6.5, 95% PI 6.0–9.2), and during the two COVID-19 outbreak phases in 2020 (2.8, 95% PI 2.3–4.3 and 2.8, 95% CI 2.3–4.3). CONCLUSION: There is no indication that the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in suicide rates in Norway in 2020.
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spelling pubmed-90584412022-05-12 Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study Stene-Larsen, K. Raknes, G. Engdahl, B. Qin, P. Mehlum, L. Strøm, M. S. Reneflot, A. Eur Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: There is a concern that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an increase in suicides. Several reports from the first months of the pandemic showed no increase in suicide rates while studies with longer observation times report contrasting results. In this study, we explore the suicide rates in Norway during the first year of the pandemic for the total population as well as for relevant subgroups such as sex, age, geographical areas, and pandemic phases. METHODS: This is a cohort study covering the entire Norwegian population between 2010 and 2020. The main outcome was age-standardized suicide rates (per 100,000 inhabitants) in 2020 according to the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry. This was compared with 95% prediction intervals (95% PI) based on the suicide rates between 2010 and 2019. RESULTS: In 2020, there were 639 suicides in Norway corresponding to a rate of 12.1 per 100,000 (95% PI 10.2–14.4). There were no significant deviations from the predicted values for suicides in 2020 when analyzing age, sex, pandemic phase, or geographical area separately. We observed a trend toward a lower than predicted suicide rate among females (6.5, 95% PI 6.0–9.2), and during the two COVID-19 outbreak phases in 2020 (2.8, 95% PI 2.3–4.3 and 2.8, 95% CI 2.3–4.3). CONCLUSION: There is no indication that the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in suicide rates in Norway in 2020. Cambridge University Press 2022-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC9058441/ /pubmed/35437137 http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2022.17 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stene-Larsen, K.
Raknes, G.
Engdahl, B.
Qin, P.
Mehlum, L.
Strøm, M. S.
Reneflot, A.
Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study
title Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study
title_full Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study
title_fullStr Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study
title_full_unstemmed Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study
title_short Suicide trends in Norway during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: A register-based cohort study
title_sort suicide trends in norway during the first year of the covid-19 pandemic: a register-based cohort study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9058441/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35437137
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2022.17
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