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Effect of the First World War on suicide rates in Ireland: an investigation of the 1864–1921 suicide trends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Mugtaba Osman  and
Andrew C. Parnell
Mugtaba Osman*
Affiliation:
St Brigid's Hospital, Ardee, Co. Louth, Ireland
Andrew C. Parnell
Affiliation:
School of Mathematical Sciences, Insight: the National Centre for Data Analytics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
*
Mugtaba Osman, St Brigid's Hospital, Ardee, Co. Louth, Ireland. Email: mugtaba.osman@ucdconnect.ie
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Summary

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Since the proposition of the social integration theory by émile Durkheim, macro-sociological changes have been speculated to affect suicide rates. This study investigates the effect of the First World War on Irish suicide rates. We applied an interrupted time series design of 1864–1921 annual Irish suicide rates. The 1864–1913 suicide rates exhibited a slow-rising trend with a sharp decline from the year 1914 onwards. The odds for death by suicide for males during the 1914–1918 period was 0.811 (95% CI 0.768–0.963). Irish rates of suicide were significantly reduced during the First World War, most notably for males.

Type
Short report
Information
BJPsych Open , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 2015 , pp. 164 - 165
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2015

Footnotes

Declaration of interest

None.

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