IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v62y2006i11p2887-2896.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Recent life events and suicide: A case-control study in Tallinn and Frankfurt

Author

Listed:
  • Kõlves, Kairi
  • Värnik, Airi
  • Schneider, Barbara
  • Fritze, Jürgen
  • Allik, Jüri

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences in the disposition and frequency of recent life events preceding suicide in two cities with different socio-political backgrounds: Tallinn in Estonia and Frankfurt/Main in Germany. The information about 156 suicidents in Tallinn and 163 suicidents in Frankfurt was compiled using the psychological autopsy technique [Shneidman, E. S. (1981). The psychological autopsy. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 11, 325-340; Jacobs, D., & Klein-Benheim, M. (1995). The psychological autopsy: A useful tool for determining proximate causation in suicide cases. Bulletin of American Academy of Psychiatry Law, 23(2), 165-182]. General population controls were matched by age and sex. The occurrence of recent life events was similar among suicidents in Tallinn (81%) and Frankfurt (77%). However, in both sites only male suicides had higher risk of occurrence of any life event than controls (Tallinn: OR'=1.9; 95% CI=1.1-3.7; Frankfurt: OR'=2.0; 95% CI=1.0-4.1) and the mean number of life events was significantly higher among male suicidents in Tallinn in comparison with controls. This may indicate that males are more sensitive to the rapid changes in a society undergoing transition. It seems that it is not the number of life events, but rather their meaning and disposition that creates the risk of suicide. Family discord (weighted OR=4.5; 95% CI=2.5-8.1), loss of job (weighted OR=2.6; 95% CI=1.0-6.4) and financial deterioration (weighted OR=2.2; 95% CI=1.3-3.8) were more prevalent among suicides in Tallinn in comparison with those in Frankfurt. The most significant differences between suicides and controls were family discord, separation and loss of job in Tallinn and somatic illness in Frankfurt. These differences between the two societies, post-Soviet Estonia and Germany, could be explained by the different positions of Estonia and Germany on the survival/self-expression dimensions recorded by the World Value Survey. People in Estonia tend to emphasize economic and physical security above all other goals, and feel threatened by the changes taking place in society. In Germany, good health is considered a necessity for a consumer and self-expressive style of life, and poor health is perceived as a serious threat to the quality of life in a post-materialistic value system.

Suggested Citation

  • Kõlves, Kairi & Värnik, Airi & Schneider, Barbara & Fritze, Jürgen & Allik, Jüri, 2006. "Recent life events and suicide: A case-control study in Tallinn and Frankfurt," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2887-2896, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:62:y:2006:i:11:p:2887-2896
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00627-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clark, David E. & Wildner, Manfred, 2000. "Violence and fear of violence in East and West Germany," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 373-379, August.
    2. Neumayer, Eric, 2004. "Recessions lower (some) mortality rates:: evidence from Germany," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 1037-1047, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wen-Chao Zhang & Cun-Xian Jia & Ji-Yu Zhang & Lin-Lin Wang & Xian-Chen Liu, 2015. "Negative Life Events and Attempted Suicide in Rural China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, January.
    2. Boyoung Park & So Young Kim & Ji-Yeon Shin & Robert W Sanson-Fisher & Dong Wook Shin & Juhee Cho & Jong Hyock Park, 2013. "Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempts in Anxious or Depressed Family Caregivers of Patients with Cancer: A Nationwide Survey in Korea," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-7, April.
    3. Kyung-Sook, Woo & SangSoo, Shin & Sangjin, Shin & Young-Jeon, Shin, 2018. "Marital status integration and suicide: A meta-analysis and meta-regression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 116-126.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ainhoa Aparicio, 2014. "Newborn Health and the Business Cycle," CINCH Working Paper Series 1402, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    2. Wang, Huixia & Wang, Chenggang & Halliday, Timothy J., 2018. "Health and health inequality during the great recession: Evidence from the PSID," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 17-30.
    3. Clémentine Garrouste & Mathilde Godard, 2016. "The lasting health impact of leaving school in a bad economy : Britons in the 1970s recession," Post-Print hal-01408637, HAL.
    4. Cristina Bellés‐Obrero & Sergi Jiménez‐Martín & Judit Vall‐Castello, 2016. "Bad Times, Slimmer Children?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S2), pages 93-112, November.
    5. Abdou, Rawayda & Cassells, Damien & Berrill, Jenny & Hanly, Jim, 2020. "An empirical investigation of the relationship between business performance and suicide in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    6. Katja Hanewald & Thomas Post & Helmut Gründl, 2011. "Stochastic Mortality, Macroeconomic Risks and Life Insurer Solvency," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 36(3), pages 458-475, July.
    7. Petri Böckerman & Edvard Johansson & Satu Helakorpi & Ritva Prättälä & Erkki Vartiainen & Antti Uutela, 2007. "Does a slump really make you thinner? Finnish micro‐level evidence 1978–2002," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 103-107, January.
    8. Bonamore, Giorgio & Carmignani, Fabrizio & Colombo, Emilio, 2015. "Addressing the unemployment–mortality conundrum: Non-linearity is the answer," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 67-72.
    9. Cristina Borra & Jerònia Pons-Pons & Margarita Vilar-Rodríguez, 2020. "Austerity, healthcare provision, and health outcomes in Spain," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(3), pages 409-423, April.
    10. Katja Hanewald, 2008. "Beyond the business cycle - factors driving aggregate mortality rates," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-031, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    11. Tapia Granados, José A. & Rodriguez, Javier M., 2015. "Health, economic crisis, and austerity: A comparison of Greece, Finland and Iceland," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(7), pages 941-953.
    12. Edwards, Ryan, 2008. "Who is hurt by procyclical mortality?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(12), pages 2051-2058, December.
    13. Pamela Pereyra-Zamora & José M. Copete & Adriana Oliva-Arocas & Pablo Caballero & Joaquín Moncho & Carlos Vergara-Hernández & Andreu Nolasco, 2020. "Changes in Socioeconomic Inequalities in Amenable Mortality after the Economic Crisis in Cities of the Spanish Mediterranean Coast," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-28, September.
    14. Sheng-Ti Hung & Hui He, 2011. "Are Recessions Good for Your Health? A Macroeconomic Analysis," 2011 Meeting Papers 1178, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Joan Costa-Font & Martin Karlsson & Henning Øien, 2015. "Informal Care and the Great Recession," CINCH Working Paper Series 1502, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health, revised Feb 2015.
    16. Nizalova, Olena & Norton, Edward C., 2021. "Long-term effects of job loss on male health: BMI and health behaviors," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    17. Ólafsdóttir, Thorhildur & Hrafnkelsson, Birgir & Thorgeirsson, Gudmundur & Ásgeirsdóttir, Tinna Laufey, 2016. "The tax-free year in Iceland: A natural experiment to explore the impact of a short-term increase in labor supply on the risk of heart attacks," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 14-27.
    18. Andersson, Elvira & Lundborg, Petter & Vikström, Johan, 2015. "Income receipt and mortality — Evidence from Swedish public sector employees," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 21-32.
    19. Jofre-Bonet, M. & Serra-Sastre, V. & Vandoros, S., 2016. "Better Health in Times of Hardship?," Working Papers 16/09, Department of Economics, City University London.
    20. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & von Hinke, Stephanie & Lindeboom, Maarten & Lissdaniels, Johannes & Sundquist, Jan & Sundquist, Kristina, 2017. "Mortality and the business cycle: Evidence from individual and aggregated data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 61-70.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:62:y:2006:i:11:p:2887-2896. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.