Sucide Awareness Stamp

Suicide is defined as the intentional taking of one's own life. In some European languages, the word for suicide translates into English as "self-murder " Until the end of the twentieth century, approximately, suicide was considered a criminal act; legal terminology used the Latin phrase felo-de-se , which means "a crime against the self." Much of the social stigma that is still associated with suicide derives from its former connection with legal judgment, as well as with religious condemnation.

Suicide has become a major social and medical problem around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that one million people worldwide died from suicide in the year 2000. That is a global mortality rate of 16:100,000—or one death by suicide every 40 seconds. Since the mid-1950s, suicide rates around the world have risen by 60%. Rates among young people have risen even faster, to the point where they are now the age group at highest risk in 35% of the world's countries.

The specific demographics, however, vary from country to country. China's pattern, for example, is very different from that of most other countries. China has a suicide mortality rate of 23:100,000, with a total of 287,000 deaths by suicide each year. The rate for women is 25% higher than that for men, and rates in rural areas are three times higher than in cities.

The suicide rate among children and adolescents in the U.S. has risen faster than that of the world population as a whole. The suicide rate for Caucasian males aged 15 to 24 years has tripled since 1950; and it has more than doubled for Caucasian females in the same age bracket. In 1999, a survey of high school students found that 20% had seriously considered suicide or attempted it in the previous year. Of adolescents who do commit suicide, 90% have at least one diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death. Most frequently it is major depression, substance abuse disorder, or conduct disorder


Research indicates that the following factors increase a person's risk of suicide:

- Male sex.
- Age over 75.
- A family history of suicide.
- A history of suicide attempts.
- A history of abuse in childhood.
- Traumatic experiences after childhood
- Recent stressful events, such as separation or divorce, job loss, or death of spouse.
- Chronic medical illness. Patients with AIDS have a rate of suicide 20 times that of the general population.
- Access to a gun. Death by firearms is now the fastestgrowing method of suicide among men and women. Nearly 57% of deaths caused by guns in the U.S. are suicides.
- Alcohol or substance abuse. While mood-altering substances do not cause a person to kill himself/herself, they weaken impulse control.
- High blood cholesterol levels.
- Presence of a psychiatric illness. Over 90% of Americans who commit suicide have a mental illness. Major depression accounts for 60% of suicides, followed by schizophrenia , alcoholism, substance abuse, borderline personality disorder , Huntington's disease, and epilepsy. The lifetime mortality due to suicide in psychiatric patients is 15% for major depression; 20% for bipolar disorder ; 18% for alcoholism; 10% for schizophrenia; and 5–10% for borderline and certain other personality disorders.

Factors that lower a person's risk of suicide include:

- a significant friendship network outside the workplace
religious faith and practice
- a stable marriage
- a close-knit extended family
- a strong interest in or commitment to a project or cause that brings people together, including community service, environmental concerns, neighborhood associations, animal rescue groups, etc.

Suicide attempts

Researchers estimate that 8–25 people attempt suicide for every person who completes the act. Suicide attempts can be broadly categorized along a continuum that ranges from seriously planned attempts involving a highly lethal method that fail by good fortune, to impulsive or poorly planned attempts using a less lethal method.

A suicide attempt of any kind, however, is treated as a psychiatric emergency by rescue personnel. Treatment in a hospital emergency room includes a complete psychiatric evaluation, a mental status examination, and a detailed assessment of the circumstances surrounding the attempt. The physician will interview relatives or anyone else who accompanied the patient in order to obtain as much information as possible. As a rule, suicide attempts requiring advance planning, including precautions taken against discovery, and the use of violent or highly lethal methods are regarded as the most serious. The patient will be kept under observation while decisions are made about the need for hospitalization .

A person who has attempted suicide and who is considered a serious danger to him- or herself or to others can be hospitalized against their will. The doctor will base the decision on the severity of the patient's depression or agitation; availability of friends, relatives, or other social support; and the presence of other suicide risk factors, including a history of previous suicide attempts, substance abuse, recent stressful events, and symptoms of psychosis . If the attempt is judged to be a nonlethal suicide gesture, the patient may be released after the psychiatric assessment is completed.



Those left behind

One group of people that is often overlooked in discussions of suicide is the friends and family bereaved by the suicide. It is estimated that each person who kills him- or herself leaves six survivors to deal with the aftermath. On the basis of this figure, there are at least 4.5 million survivors of suicide in the United States alone. In addition to the grief that ordinarily accompanies death, survivors of suicide often struggle with feelings of guilt and shame as well. In spite of a general liberalization of social attitudes since World War II, suicide is still stigmatized in many parts of Europe and the United States. Survivors often benefit from group or individual psychotherapy in order to work through such issues as wondering whether they could have prevented the suicide or whether they are likely to commit suicide themselves.