A brief look at the male suicide epidemic.
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Suicide is when someone takes their own life and attempted suicide is when the person tries to end their life, but survived and did not die. Over 800,000 people die due to suicide every year around the world and suicide in 2012 was the 12th most common cause of death (World Health Organisation, 2016). In every country around the world suicide is 3 times more common in men than women (World Health Organisation, 2016). Every 40 seconds around the world a person dies of suicide (Boseley, 2014). There are a number of reasons offered in academic literature as to why people attempt suicide, for example, mental health problems, debt, breakdown in relationships, prejudice because of sexuality and feeling isolated (Canetto and Cleary, 2011).
Suicidal behaviour has been investigated to a considerable extent (Goldsmith, et al., 2002). However, Bilster and White (2011) inform us that there is a lack of public awareness and little attention has been given to target male suicide rates to make the problem visible. An earlier study by Hawton (2000) suggested that more research in gender differences about suicidal behaviour was still needed. A current study by Turecki and Brent (2016) found that suicidal behaviour needs to be approached with great sensitivity and continued efforts to improve public health policy is needed in order to reduce the rates of suicide around the world.
There are some positive steps being taken in the right direction by The World Health Organisation, who introduced a comprehensive mental health action plan 2013-2020. The aim of the action plan is to tackle discriminatory attitudes that isolate people and better coordinate and integrate services for mental health clients. It is hoped that early intervention and supporting men before a crisis point in their lives will perhaps reduce the number of suicides around the world.
References
Bilsker, D and White, J. (2011) The silent epidemic of male suicide. BCMJ, Vol. 53, No. 10, December 2011.
Boseley, S. (2014) Suicide kills one person worldwide every 40 seconds, WHO report finds. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/04/suicide-kills-every-40-seconds-who [Accessed on: 13/06/2016].
Canetto, S,S and Cleary, A. (2011). Men, masculinities and suicidal behaviour. Social Science & Medicine, Volume 74, Issue 4, February 2012, Pages 461–465.
Goldsmith, S, K., Peller, T, C., Kleinman, W, E., and Bunney, W, E. (2002) Reducing suicide: A national imperative. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C (2002).
Hawton, K. (2000) Sex and suicide. Gender differences in suicidal behavior. Br J Psychiatry 2000;177:484-485.
Turecki, G and Brent, DA. (2016) Suicide and suicidal behaviour. The Lancet Vol 387 March 19, 2016.
World Health Organisation (2016) Suicide data
http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/
[Accessed on: 20/06/2016].
Photo: Flickr – Jared Keener/”National Suicide Prevention”