DO REGIONAL RISK FACTORS AFFECT THE CRUDE SUICIDAL MORTALITY RATES IN TURKEY?

Asirdizer M, Yavuz MS, Aydin S, Tatlisumak E.

Journal of Forensic Medicine, 2009; 23(2): 1-10.

ABSTRACT

Aims of this study were to reveal differences in suicidal deaths among various regions of Turkey and to evaluate effects of various demographic, socio-economic and socio-cultural factors on regional suicide rates. The crude data about suicidal deaths in 2006 were collected from the website of Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT) and other web pages and they were adopted for this study.

There were 2,829 suicidal deaths in Turkey in 2006. The crude suicidal mortality rate was found to be 3.88 per 100,000 people. The mean age of female and male victims was 30.4±16.7 years (median: 30.0 years) and 38.4±16.8 years (median: 37.7 years) respectively. The incidence of male and female victims was found to be 4.82 per 100,000 people and 2.91 per 100,000 people respectively.

In this study, even though regional rates of risk factors including to educational level, population density, net domestic migration rate, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, average age at marriage, crude marriage rate, fertility and crude divorce were not found to have a significant effect on crude suicide rates, these risk factors may individually affected on suicide victims. They were not causes of suicides, but were incentive on the persons who psychiatric predisposed to suicidal acts.

Keywords: Suicide, demographic characteristics, socio-economic factors, socio-cultural factors, regional risk factors.