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Documentation sheet



Suicide attempt

Definition of indicator

Proportion of persons having ever attempted suicide.


Calculation (numerator, denominator)

Percentage of those who gave a positive answer to the CIDI question: “Have you ever attempted suicide?”

1) question about suicide attempts asked only if depression sieve passed.

2) question about suicide attempts asked from all respondents


Additional underlying concepts

Reporting bias has to be considered.


Relevant dimensions (subgroups)

Country (also region), calendar year, gender, age group.


Preferred data sources

National HIS. Hospital data not appropriate.


Rationale

Suicide is an important public health issue and highlights mental health priority. Data on suicide attempts supplement the information already provided by mortality data.


Data availability, quality and periodicity

Availability of the suicide attempt data is quite poor. Some national HIS by CIDI (ie question asked only if depression sieve passed). Question about suicide attempt asked from every respondent is more widely used. Some data available from Mental Health Indicators pilot survey 2001: DE, FI, FR, GR. Data available in MINDFUL database.

In the MINDFUL pilot study suicide attempts during the preceding 12 months were rather uncommon (n=22, 1%; range 0.5-2.5%) The data from the pilot study provide a reasonable picture of the feasibility of using this set of scales as a means of mental health monitoring.


References

MINDFUL project

CIDI: The Composite International Diagnostic Interview


Work to do

  • Decide which calculation method (source) to follow – there’s a crucial difference between the two methods.
  • Keep in the short-list, or move to wish list?

Data Presentations


More indicator information will follow in due time.

Codebook



To be developed later

ECHIM Products website, version 1.1,  October 2008, ECHIM project.


Homepage Echim.org