IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v60y2014i5p462-467.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Characteristics of immigrant suicide completers in a sample of suicide victims from Greece

Author

Listed:
  • Antonios Paraschakis
  • Ioannis Michopoulos
  • Christos Christodoulou
  • Filippos Koutsaftis
  • Lefteris Lykouras
  • Athanassios Douzenis

Abstract

Background: Immigrants have higher rates of suicidal behaviour in comparison to the indigenous population. Aims: To describe the characteristics of foreign nationality suicide completers and search for differences between them and native Greeks. This is the first study focused on immigrant suicide victims in Greece. Methods: Data were collected for all recorded cases of completed suicide for the two-year period November 2007 to October 2009 at the Athens Department of Forensic Medicine, the largest, by far, of its kind in Greece covering approximately 35% of the country’s population. The material was collected using the method of psychological autopsy as well as from the victims’ forensic records. Results: Nearly 10% of Greece’s 11 million population are of foreign nationality. Approximately half of them live in Athens and its suburbs, an area where 35% of Greece’s population lives. In our sample, 15.8% of the suicide victims were of foreign nationality (53 cases): 41 men (77.4%) and 12 women (22.6%). Higher suicide rates were found for citizens of Kuwaiti (9.1%), Somali (6.7%) and Afghan (0.9%) nationality (immigrant communities with very few members); the lower suicide rates were for individuals of Egyptian (0.01%), Ukrainian (0.01%) and Albanian (0.006%) nationality (the Albanian immigrant community is the largest in Greece). In comparison to their Greek counterparts, immigrant victims were younger (mean age 38.7 vs 54.9 years, p

Suggested Citation

  • Antonios Paraschakis & Ioannis Michopoulos & Christos Christodoulou & Filippos Koutsaftis & Lefteris Lykouras & Athanassios Douzenis, 2014. "Characteristics of immigrant suicide completers in a sample of suicide victims from Greece," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(5), pages 462-467, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:60:y:2014:i:5:p:462-467
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764013496081
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764013496081
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764013496081?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Taylor, Richard & Morrell, Stephen & Slaytor, Emma & Ford, Paul, 1998. "Suicide in urban New South Wales, Australia 1985-1994: socio-economic and migrant interactions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 47(11), pages 1677-1686, December.
    2. Frank Trovato, 1986. "A Time Series Analysis of International Immigration and Suicide Mortality in Canada," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 32(2), pages 38-46, June.
    3. Peter J. Aspinall, 2002. "Suicide amongst Irish Migrants in Britain: A Review of the Identity and Integration Hypothesis," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 48(4), pages 290-304, December.
    4. Michael Ritsner & Alexander Ponizovsky, 1999. "Psychological Distress Through Immigration: the Two-Phase Temporal Pattern?," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 45(2), pages 125-139, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Amelie F. Constant & Teresa García-Muñoz & Shoshana Neuman & Tzahi Neuman, 2018. "A “healthy immigrant effect” or a “sick immigrant effect”? Selection and policies matter," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(1), pages 103-121, January.
    2. Alberto Forte & Federico Trobia & Flavia Gualtieri & Dorian A. Lamis & Giuseppe Cardamone & Vincenzo Giallonardo & Andrea Fiorillo & Paolo Girardi & Maurizio Pompili, 2018. "Suicide Risk among Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities: A Literature Overview," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-21, July.
    3. Liam Delaney & Alan Fernihough & James Smith, 2013. "Exporting Poor Health: The Irish in England," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(6), pages 2013-2035, December.
    4. Yong Gan & Heng Jiang & Liqing Li & Yudi Yang & Chao Wang & Jianxin Liu & Tingting Yang & Yanling Zheng & Yi Zhu & Opoku Sampson & Hongbin Xu & Fang Yu & Yali Chen & Chulani Herath & Yanyan Zhong & Qi, 2020. "A national survey of turnover intention among general practitioners in China," International Journal of Health Planning and Management, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 482-493, March.
    5. Leavey, Gerard & Rozmovits, Linda & Ryan, Louise & King, Michael, 2007. "Explanations of depression among Irish migrants in Britain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 231-244, July.
    6. Devaraj, Srikant & Patel, Pankaj C., 2021. "Change in psychological distress in response to changes in reduced mobility during the early 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence of modest effects from the U.S," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    7. Page, Andrew & Morrell, Stephen & Taylor, Richard & Dudley, Michael & Carter, Greg, 2007. "Further increases in rural suicide in young Australian adults: Secular trends, 1979-2003," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 442-453, August.
    8. Taylor, Richard & Page, Andrew & Morrell, Stephen & Harrison, James & Carter, Greg, 2005. "Mental health and socio-economic variations in Australian suicide," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 1551-1559, October.

    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:sae:socpsy:v:60:y:2014:i:5:p:462-467. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.