Suicide and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
Background
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis, but its effect on suicide deaths is little understood.
Methods
We analyzed data from monthly suicide statistics between January 2017 and October 2020 and from online surveys on mental health filled out by the general population in Japan.
Results
Compared to the 2017–19 period, the number of suicide deaths during the initial phase of the pandemic was lower than average but exceeded the past trend from July 2020. Female suicides, whose numbers increased by approximately 70% in October 2020 (incidence rate ratio: 1.695, 95% confidence interval: 1.558–1.843), were the main source of this increase. The largest increase was found among young women (less than 40 years of age). Our survey data indicated that the status of young women’s mental health has been deteriorating in recent months and that young female workers were more likely to have experienced a job or income loss than any other group, suggesting adverse economic conditions surrounding them.
Conclusions
Continuous monitoring of mental health, particularly that of the most vulnerable populations identified in this study, and appropriate suicide prevention efforts are necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article activity feed
-
-
-
-
-
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.06.20207530: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: The survey was approved by the Ethics Review Committee on Human Research of Waseda University (approval #: 2020-050) and Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This study has several limitations. First, our …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.06.20207530: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement IRB: The survey was approved by the Ethics Review Committee on Human Research of Waseda University (approval #: 2020-050) and Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This study has several limitations. First, our analysis used provisional monthly data on suicide deaths, which may be corrected upward in subsequent months. Thus, any reported decline should be interpreted with caution. Second, our data on suicide deaths are aggregate in nature, because the NPA does not release individual-level data; thus, our analysis could not control for the impacts of confounders. Third, our online surveys relied on the commercial panel of respondents, who were not randomly sampled from the general population. Thus, the survey data might not include certain segments of the population. Despite these limitations, the present study makes an important contribution to the scientific community by reporting the trajectories of suicide deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic and by highlighting the most vulnerable populations during this unprecedented public health crisis. The experience in Japan may provide valuable implications for other countries. Given that the most affected industries were those mainly served by women in many other countries, it is likely that women constitute one of the highest risk groups for suicide in those countries as well. Similarly, since many countries also introduced school closures during the peak period of the pandemic, future studies should investigate the impact of school closures on schoolchildren and university students. The results of our study strongly indicate that continuous monitoring of mental health and appropriate suicide...
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.
-