SOME 75 per cent of suicides occur in low and middle-income countries, and more than 800,000 people around the world die from suicide every year. This works out to approximately one person every 40 seconds, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).Guyana has the highest estimated suicide rate in the world. Data from the Americas show that suicide rates first peak among young people, remain at the same level for other age groups, and rise again among older men.

Pesticide poisoning is one of the most common methods of suicide, especially in low- and middle-income countries, and accounts for one-third of cases globally. In the last 45 years, suicide rates have increased by 60 per cent worldwide.

PREVENTION
A World Health Organization (WHO) report identifies a series of measures that can help prevent suicide. Among them are: creating national strategies for suicide prevention; restricting access to the most common means of suicide, including pesticides, firearms and certain medicines; providing medical follow-up for people who have attempted suicide; incorporating suicide prevention as a central component in health services; identifying and treating mental health and substance abuse disorders as early as possible; and responsible reporting on suicide by the news media.

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one’s own death, and is often carried out as a result of many reasons, one being despair. Suicide may be attributed to a mental disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, alcoholism, or drug abuse. Moreover, stress factors are also responsible for suicides.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), suicide is among the three leading causes of death among persons aged between 15 and 44 years in some countries, and is the second leading cause of death in the 10-24 years age group. These figures do not include suicide attempts, which are up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicide.

In Berbice, the rate doubles to 50 per 100,000. Suicide is the leading cause of death among youths aged between 15 and 24 years old, and is the third leading cause of death among persons between 25 and 44 years old.

In the 15-19 age group, suicide is the leading cause of death among females, and the second leading cause of death among males.

RISK FACTORS
Officials have blamed factors such as depression, domestic disputes, and distress over health problems as major contributory factors. Statistics also show that Guyanese of East Indian descent were most likely to take their lives, prompting community organisations to press the government to act.

Other risk factors include: Mental illness, primarily depression and alcohol-use disorders; abuse; violence; loss; cultural and social background.

Guyana’s suicide rate is said to be one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere, and is close to world-leading levels in Russia and other former Soviet countries.

The WHO noted that, every year, almost one million people die from suicide; a “global” mortality rate of 16 per 100,000, or one death every 40 seconds. Suicide worldwide is estimated at 1.8 percent of the total global burden of disease in 1998, and 2.4 percent in countries with market and former socialist economies in 2020.

Worldwide, the prevention of suicide has not been adequately addressed, due basically to a lack of awareness of suicide as a major problem and the taboo in many societies to discuss it openly. In fact, only a few countries have included prevention of suicide among their priorities.

According to the WHO, it is clear that suicide prevention requires intervention from outside the health sector. Therefore, that body calls for an innovative, comprehensive multi-sectoral approach that includes both health and non-health sectors, e.g. education, labour, police, justice, religion, law, politics, the media.

MULTI-SECTORAL APPROACHES
Strategies involving restriction of access to common methods of suicide, such as firearms or toxic substances like pesticides, have proven to be effective in reducing suicide rates. However, there is need to adopt multi-sectoral approaches involving many levels of intervention and activities.

The health organization has noted that the compelling evidence indicating that adequate prevention and treatment of depression and alcohol and substance abuse can reduce suicide rates as well as follow-up contact with those who have attempted suicide.

Although traditionally suicide rates have been highest among the elderly male, rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of the countries in both the developed and developing countries.