2023-12-02 15:06:56
One of the biggest concerns of the pandemic was that the number of suicides could increase due to the stress: “Mortality from suicide and Covid-19 – a perfect storm?” American researchers wrote in April 2020 in the journal “Jama Psychiatry”. Reports of increasing suicide cases were accompanied by great public interest. Because of “Corona and lockdowns” there are “three times more suicide attempts among children”, was the headline of “Bild” at the beginning of 2022 with reference to a study by researchers at Essen University Hospital: Some intensive care units had reported significantly increased numbers of young patients who were treated there after a suicide attempt in connection with the second lockdown – in the first the numbers were below average.
The Federal Statistical Office recently published the cause of death statistics for 2022. Accordingly, there were 10,119 suicides – almost 10 percent more than in the previous year. With around 4,500 suicides, almost half of the cases occurred in people aged 65 and over; in the previous year there were around 560 fewer suicides in this age group. For people aged up to 50, the numbers are roughly at the previous year’s level – and below the numbers from before the pandemic.
At the end of October, a team from Leipzig University Hospital led by psychiatrist Daniel Radeloff and epidemiologist Jon Genuneit in „Psychiatry Research“ reported a statistical analysis of data from the police crime statistics of five federal states: They found a reversal in the trend in suicide cases, especially for 2022. After the numbers had decreased significantly in the previous decades, an increase can be observed, especially in the age group over 60, which is also reflected in the cause of death statistics for the whole of Germany. Socially, this should be seen as a warning signal, says Genuneit: More political support is needed for suicide prevention.
Unclear causes
The reasons for the changes are unclear; there are no valid studies on this. The researchers cite an increase in mental illnesses due to the pandemic, as well as increasing financial worries as well as uncertainties caused by the geopolitical situation and fear of war, as possible causes.
There is still good news: concerns about increased suicides among minors have not yet been confirmed. According to another current analysis by the Leipzig researchers of police data from three federal states, they published in the journal “Psychiatric Practice”., there is no increase in suicides among young Germans. A possible explanation for the discrepancy in the increase in suicide attempts is, in addition to methodological criticism of how they are collected, also the fact that the two values are not necessarily related in minors. “In children and adolescents, one can only draw very limited conclusions about the number of suicides from suicide attempt rates,” says child and adolescent psychiatrist Radeloff.
Help with suicidal thoughts
If you are thinking about taking your own life, try talking to other people about it. There are a variety of support services where you can talk to other people about your thoughts, even anonymously.
This can be done by phone, chat, email or in person.
Telephone counseling is anonymous, free and available around the clock. The telephone numbers are 0 800 / 111 0 111 and 0 800 / 111 0 222.
The call to the telephone counseling service is not only free of charge, it also does not appear on the telephone bill or in the individual connection statement.
The telephone counseling service also offers one Help chats. Registration takes place on the Telephone counseling website. You can also enter the chat room without an appointment. If no consultant is available, a booked appointment will definitely work.
The third offer of telephone counseling is the possibility of Email advice. You can log in to the telephone counseling website and write your messages and read replies from the counselors. This means that email traffic does not appear in your normal mailboxes.
Still, he doesn’t give the all-clear. “The clinical care situation is precarious, the need among children and young people is still very great.” Many clinics are having great difficulties due to the lack of care, which means that psychiatric needs can be harder to cover, says Radeloff – even if emergency care is guaranteed. It is important to lower the threshold for offers of help and to offer alternative advice.
There is a lot of demand for new offers of help
The opportunities for treatment are not used enough in adolescence, he says. “Unfortunately, young people rarely seek help in a psychiatric clinic before committing suicide: only one in six or seven succeeds in doing so.” New crisis intervention services, however, are in high demand. There is, for example, the “Crisis Chat”, the online advice service “U25” or the “Number against Grief”.
Franziska Pröll Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 8
The Federal Statistical Office has published statistics on the causes of death. The number of suicides hardly decreased across Germany in 2021. Things look different in Frankfurt, as the health department says.
Published/Updated: Karin Truscheit, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 5
The researchers believe that a nationwide suicide register is desirable. This would not only enable timely monitoring of suicide rates in new socially exceptional situations: “Above all, information about people who had never sought psychiatric or psychotherapeutic help before dying by suicide could be analyzed and help to target treatment hurdles for this population be reduced,” they write in their article in “Psychiatric Practice.”
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