Suicide trends varied by age-subgroups during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 in Taiwan.

ABSTRACT:

Background/purpose

The outbreak of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to unprecedented impact on mental health globally. Recent empirical data however, indicated that suicide rates in many countries remained unchanged or even decreased. Existing studies assessed the overall rates and did not stratify by age-subgroups.

Methods

We used an interrupted time-series analysis to model the age-stratified (<25, 25-44, 45-64, ≥65) trends in monthly suicide rates before (January 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2019) and after (January 1st 2020 to December 31st 2020) the outbreak of COVID-19 in Taiwan.

Results

We found a slight decrease in overall suicide rates after the outbreak (annual average rates were 16.4 and 15.5 per 100,000 population, respectively, p = 0.05). Ag

SUBMITTER: Chen YY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8493279 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature