Back
Seasonality in suicide--a review and search of new concepts for explaining the heterogeneous phenomena.
Journal article

Seasonality in suicide--a review and search of new concepts for explaining the heterogeneous phenomena.

  • 2010-06-25
Published in:
  • Social science & medicine (1982). - 2010
Epidemiologic Research Design
Female
History, 19th Century
History, 20th Century
Humans
Male
Qualitative Research
Seasons
Suicide
Weather
English Seasonality is one of the oldest and most resistant-to-elucidation issues in suicide research. However, in recent years epidemiological research has yielded new results, which provide new perspectives on the matter. This qualitative review summarizes research published since the 1990 s. In particular, the focus is on studies dealing with the historical change of seasonality, cross-sectional comparisons including method-specific diversity, and the association with weather variables and other putative covariates. Recent research has shown that in Western countries the seasonality of suicide is tending to diminish and may, eventually, disappear. It can no longer be considered a universal and homogeneous phenomenon. In addition, different major seasonal cycles have now been determined which mainly depend on different suicide methods. Just as in the epidemiology of suicide methods, the (seasonal) availability and perceived adequacy of methods emerge as the major driving force beyond the seasonal phenomena in suicide.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/14512
Statistics
Document views: 34 File downloads: