Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on suicide rates in Japan through December 2021 : An interrupted time series analysis.

Abstract

We searched PubMed for studies published between 1st January 2020 and 31st October 2021, with the keywords “COVID” and “suicid*.” We applied no language, study design, or quality of publication restrictions to the search. The search returned 1009 articles. Most of these were either correspondence, comments, editorials, or research articles analysing events that were not suicide-related deaths, such as self-harm or suicidal ideation. Only 34 studies examined how absolute numbers and suicide rates had changed from the pre-pandemic period to the pandemic period, using reasonably reliable data. Most of these studies have reported no increase in the number of suicides or suicide rates during the pandemic compared with pre-pandemic levels, only a few report an increase. Even within the same country or region, suicide trends have been reported to vary by gender, age, and race. Studies in the US states of Maryland and Connecticut reported a decrease in suicide rates among whites during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period, but an increase in suicide rates among non-whites. In Guangdong province in China, there was an increase in suicide deaths among those aged 10–14 years old during the pandemic. In Hungary, an increase was found in men, while no change was observed in women during the pandemic. In Japan, fewer suicides were initially reported between February and June 2020, compared to the corresponding months in previous years, but there was an increase in the number of suicides from July to November 2020 compared to the corresponding months in previous years. The increases in suicide in Japan were more pronounced among younger generations and in women. Most previous studies have focused on the first year of the pandemic (2020), with the longest period being up to February 2021. No studies have examined suicide trends beyond that date. Moreover, most studies have not considered seasonal variations and pre-pandemic time series trends.

Rights

2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2022.100480

Repository URI

https://hdl.handle.net/2164/19876