Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/26484
Appears in Collections:Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: An analysis of suicide trends in Scotland 1950-2014: comparison with England & Wales
Author(s): Dougall, Nadine
Stark, Cameron
Agnew, Tim
Henderson, Rob
Maxwell, Margaret
Lambert, Paul
Keywords: Scotland
England
Wales
UK
Suicide
Age period cohort analysis
Epidemiology
Deaths of undetermined intent
Deaths of intentional self-harm
Issue Date: 20-Dec-2017
Date Deposited: 9-Jan-2018
Citation: Dougall N, Stark C, Agnew T, Henderson R, Maxwell M & Lambert P (2017) An analysis of suicide trends in Scotland 1950-2014: comparison with England & Wales. <i>BMC Public Health</i>, 17 (1), Art. No.: 970. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4956-6
Abstract: Background Scotland has disproportionately high rates of suicide compared with England. An analysis of trends may help reveal whether rates appear driven more by birth cohort, period or age. A &lsquo;birth cohort effect&rsquo; for England &amp; Wales has been previously reported by Gunnell et al. (B J Psych 182:164-70, 2003). This study replicates this analysis for Scotland, makes comparisons between the countries, and provides information on &lsquo;vulnerable&rsquo; cohorts. Methods Suicide and corresponding general population data were obtained from the National Records of Scotland, 1950 to 2014. Age and gender specific mortality rates were estimated. Age, period and cohort patterns were explored graphically by trend analysis. Results A pattern was found whereby successive male birth cohorts born after 1940 experienced higher suicide rates, in increasingly younger age groups, echoing findings reported for England &amp; Wales. Young men (aged 20-39) were found to have a marked and statistically significant increase in suicide between those in the 1960 and 1965 birth cohorts. The 1965 cohort peaked in suicide rate aged 35-39, and the subsequent 1970 cohort peaked even younger, aged 25-29; it is possible that these 1965 and 1970 cohorts are at greater mass vulnerability to suicide than earlier cohorts. This was reflected in data for England &amp; Wales, but to a lesser extent. Suicide rates associated with male birth cohorts subsequent to 1975 were less severe, and not statistically significantly different from earlier cohorts, suggestive of an amelioration of any possible influential &lsquo;cohort&rsquo; effect. Scottish female suicide rates for all age groups converged and stabilised over time. Women have not been as affected as men, with less variation in patterns by different birth cohorts and with a much less convincing corresponding pattern suggestive of a &lsquo;cohort&rsquo; effect. Conclusions Trend analysis is useful in identifying &lsquo;vulnerable&rsquo; cohorts, providing opportunities to develop suicide prevention strategies addressing these cohorts as they age.
DOI Link: 10.1186/s12889-017-4956-6
Rights: © The Author(s). 2017 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
s12889-017-4956-6.pdfFulltext - Published Version996.56 kBAdobe PDFView/Open



This item is protected by original copyright



A file in this item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons

Items in the Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

The metadata of the records in the Repository are available under the CC0 public domain dedication: No Rights Reserved https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

If you believe that any material held in STORRE infringes copyright, please contact library@stir.ac.uk providing details and we will remove the Work from public display in STORRE and investigate your claim.