More suicides occur than in statistics

Last resort suicide: Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every year to take the life. Researchers believe that the official figures do not even capture the whole reality.

Die number of people who kill themselves is underestimated according to scientists around the world clearly. For adolescent girls, this is now leading cause of death, suicide among young males stand in third place behind traffic accidents and violent crimes, scientists found out from several countries. The British science journal "The Lancet" published in the current issue several international studies on self-injury and killings.


Official estimates by the World Health Organization WHO estimate that nearly one million people worldwide take a year of life. While the number of suicides in Germany has declined significantly since the 1970s, they rose sharply in the global average, according to the researchers. In some countries, including Brazil, Singapore, Ireland and Lithuania, the suicide rates increased significantly, especially among young men, found a group of researchers led by Alexandra Pitman from University College London published.

Suicide is often kept secret to protect the members
A second study by Professor Keith Hawton and Kate Saunders of suicide research at Oxford University, according to official estimates, especially among young people are still far below the reality. In regions where suicide is considered a crime, many suicides would be kept secret to protect their loved ones. In addition, ten percent of the adolescents had ever intentionally hurt you.

Suicide in India is about to be number one killer among women. The highest suicide rates are there in the young, female and educated population. "With suicide kills nearly as many male Indians between the ages of 15 and 29 years as traffic accidents, and almost as many young women as by complications during pregnancy and childbirth," said Vikram Patel of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Widowed or divorced Indians and Chinese have, according to Patel, a comparatively lower rate of suicide than married. In many other countries like the U.S. this is reversed. In any case, should be made more difficult access to insecticides in India, the researchers propose to Patel.

Access to possible suicide-difficult sources
The scientists criticized the limited data available about the causes. Thus, there exists hardly a scientific understanding of why many young people tends to be relatively self-injury and when the limit is exceeded, which drives them to suicide.

The fight against suicide is difficult. The prescription of antidepressants have been shown to not always be effective, says the study by Saunders and Hawton, which they shared with their colleagues Rory O'Connor of Stirling University have created. Professor Paul Yip of the Hong Kong University also proposes to make access to sources of potential suicide, such as with barriers to bridges. "Most people think: Who wants to commit suicide, which is a means," said Yip. The research shows, however, that the restriction of access, as well as to toxins, can reduce the suicide rate significantly.