Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T17:57:25.179Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Assessing the Epidemiology of Suicide and Parasuicide

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

R. D. T. Farmer*
Affiliation:
Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, 17 Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AR

Abstract

Suicide is a rare phenomenon – in most countries, it explains between 0.5 and 1% of all deaths – no more than 15 per 100 000 population. Although rates increase with age, its impact on the total mortality of the young is greater than its impact on the elderly. Despite its rarity, the subject has attracted, and continues to attract, wide interest among academics and popular writers.

Type
Lecture
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvarez, A. (1971) The Savage God: A Study of Suicide. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Baechler, J. (1980) Suicides. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Brugha, T. & Walsh, D. (1978) Suicide past and present – The temporal constancy of under-reporting. British Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 177179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carstairs, G. M. (1960) Discussion on suicide. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine Meeting, November 1960, pp. 262268.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1897) Le Suicide. Paris. Translated (1952) as Suicide: A Study in Sociology, by Spaulding, J. A. & Simpson, G. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Kreitman, N., Philip, A. E., Greer, S. & Bagley, C. R. (1969) Parasuicide. British Journal of Psychiatry (letter), 115, 746747.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patel, N. S. (1973) Pathology of suicide. Medicine, Science, and the Law, 13, 103109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stengel, E., Cook, N. G. & Krefger, I. S. (1958) Patterns of death among suicide attempters, a psychiatric population and a general population. Archives of General Psychiatry, 34, 1155.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.