Trends in suicide rates during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in a major German city

  1. Daniel Radeloff
  2. Rainer Papsdorf
  3. Kirsten Uhlig
  4. Andreas Vasilache
  5. Karen Putnam
  6. Kai von Klitzing

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Abstract

Aims

It remains unclear whether the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having an impact on suicide rates (SR). Economic insecurity and mental disorders are risk factors for suicide, which may increase during the pandemic.

Methods

Data on suicide events in a major city in Germany, and the corresponding life years (LY) were provided by the local authorities. For the year 2020, periods without restrictions on freedom of movement and social contact were compared with periods of moderate and severe COVID-19 restrictions. To avoid distortions due to seasonal fluctuations and linear time trends, suicide risk during the COVID-19 pandemic was compared with data from 2010 to 2019 using an interrupted time series analysis.

Results

A total of 643 suicides were registered and 6 032 690 LY were spent between 2010 and 2020. Of these, 53 suicides and 450 429 LY accounted for the year 2020.

In 2020, SR (suicides per 100 000 LY) were lower in periods with severe COVID-19 restrictions (SR = 7.2, χ 2 = 4.033, p = 0.045) compared with periods without restrictions (SR = 16.8). A comparison with previous years showed that this difference was caused by unusually high SR before the imposition of restrictions, while SR during the pandemic were within the trend corridor of previous years (expected suicides = 32.3, observed suicides = 35; IRR = 1.084, p = 0.682).

Conclusions

SR during COVID-19 pandemic are in line with the trend in previous years. Careful monitoring of SR in the further course of the COVID-19 crisis is urgently needed. The findings have regional reference and should not be over-generalised.

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  1. Version published to 10.1017/s2045796021000019
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.21.20187419: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the ethics committee of the medical faculty of the University Hospital Leipzig, Germany (study ID: 272/20-ek) and conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki.
    Consent: For methodological reasons, no informed consent can be obtained.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Analytical strategy: Data were analysed using the R software version 3.3.1 17, IBM SPSS 25.0 18, and Microsoft Excel.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)
    Microsoft Excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.21.20187419v1 on medRxiv