Suicide Rise Likely Due to Economic Recession

Suicides are on the rise and likely due to the economic recession, according to researchers. The recession has caused financial stress, which may prompt people to commit suicide. The highest rate of suicides is among middle-aged men.

Legal, job, and financial problems were found in 37.5 percent of all middle-aged people who ended in suicide in 2010, an increase of 4.5 percent from 2005 suicides, according to findings written in the February 27 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The study researchers contend that financial pressures likely played a major role in causing drastic action in a person who might have only been thinking about taking their own life. However, the study could not prove cause and effect, only that there is a correlation between increased rates of suicides and hard economic recessions.

Katherine Hempstead, who is the author of the study, stated that the hardest hit in a downward turn of economic stress are middle-aged people. This group carries the financial burden of providing for their families by supporting their elder parents, raising children, paying for education, and planning for their retirement.

Since 1999, the study found that the suicide rates overall in United States adults, ages 40 to 64, is up a whooping 40 percent. The study researchers stated that there is economic proof that during the recession middle-aged people could have experienced much greater hardships. The researchers looked to a system, the National Violent Death Reporting System, that links information in detail on savage deaths from many sources, including death certificates, medical examiner and coroner reports, law enforcement records, and toxicology records.

The research found an increase in suicides of middle-aged people affecting external conditions such as financial pressure and/or job loss between 2005 and 2010. During the same time, suicides either stayed the same or declined involving interpersonal or personal situations. Middle-aged people have less time to recoup any declines in investments or lost earnings, as well as fewer years to work. Suffocation increased incommensurately among the middle-aged, which is a method more likely to be used in suicides related to economic, legal factors, or job issues, according to the research. The highest increase in circumstances that are external is likely to be marginally related to the worst years of the Great Recession, which is congruent with other research showing the link of suicides and declining economic conditions.

Suicide warning signs of someone going through financial issues include withdrawal, giving away possessions that mean something to the person, isolation, depression, mood swings, and talking about suicide. Others need to reach out to these people and let them know there is support available to them. The researchers stated in the study that increased awareness is needed that foreclosure, bankruptcy, job loss, and other financial issues can be risk factors for suicides. Credit counselors, employee assistance programs, human resource departments, and others need to communicate with those in financial trouble, as well as pay attention to those individuals at risk and make recommendations to them. Thus, the economic recession is likely a contributor to the rise in suicide rates.

By Michele Enli

Sources:
U.S. News & World Report
Psych Central
Diabetes Insider
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