Suicide and quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic: Do we know everything?

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is widespread concern over the impact of COVID-19 and lockdown measures on suicidal behaviour. We assessed their effects on suicide and hospitalization for attempted suicide during the initial phase of the pandemic in Chile.

Methods

We used panel data at the county and month level from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020 on suicides and related hospitalizations and a pandemic quarantine dataset. Poisson regression models and a difference-in-difference (DiD) methodology was used to estimate the impact of quarantine on both measures.

Findings

Suicide and hospitalizations for attempted suicide decreased (18% and 5.8%, respectively) during the COVID-19 outbreak in Chile (March-December 2020) compared to the same period in 2016-2019. The DiD analysis show

SUBMITTER: Duarte F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9356570 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature