Geographic, temporal, epidemiological and toxicological profile of elderly suicide victims in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, between 2017 and 2019

• Autor(a) principal: Franck, Maria Cristina
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Monteiro, Maristela Goldnadel, Limberger, Renata Pereira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Debates em Psiquiatria (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revistardp.org.br/revista/article/view/205
• topic: suicídio; idoso; epidemiologia; suicide; elderly; epidemilogy; suicidio; anciano; epidemiología

Introduction: Suicide of the elderly (people aged 60 and over) is a serious public health problem. Objective: Show the geographical, temporal, epidemiological and toxicological profile of elderly suicide victims in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, between 2017 and 2019. Method: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out by consulting all police reports and forensic reports related to suicide deaths and construction of three logistic regression models to verify associations. Results: In total, 1145 deaths of elderly people due to suicide were registered, with an increase of 17.7% from 2017 to 2019. The elderly (60 years old or more) corresponded to 28.5% of all suicides in the period, with a higher frequency of cases (53.7%) between 60 and 69 years old. The average annual mortality rate was 19.1 cases/100 thousand inhabitants, reaching 38.6 in the Vale do Rio Pardo region and 71.6 in the municipality of Venâncio Aires. There was a predominance of males (81.0%) and the elderly were more associated with the summer or autumn seasons, working days, the period of the day, the white race, the parental presence on the birth certificate, the absence criminal record and suicide means hanging or firearm. Toxicological analyzes were performed in 73.7% of the cases, observing a 2.58 times greater odds ratio (95% CI 1.86;3.65) of the victims being elderly when the results were negative for ethanol; 1.40 times higher (95% CI 1.04;1.88), when they were positive for some antidepressant and 1.62 times higher (95% CI 1.14;2.34), when they were negative for anxiolytics. Conclusion: This work presented data that can guide suicide prevention programs among the elderly.