In 2008, suicide became the leading cause of unnatural death in Spain, after surpassing traffic accidents or falls. In 2021, 4,003 people took their lives, 0.8% more than the previous year and 6.5% more than in 2018. Compared to other diseases, which kill less due to improved treatments or prevention, or deaths on the road, which have also been drastically reduced, suicide continues with a gradual growth that until now has not been able to stop. And the official figures may not fully reflect the problem.
Today, researchers from the Complutense University of Madrid, the Mental Health Network Biomedical Research Center (CIBERSAM) and the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona have presented in Madrid an evolution of suicide mortality data in the last 20 years from data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE). Among their observations, the authors of the report point to a change in the upward trend from 2018 that worsens with the arrival of the pandemic.
In 2021, in line with what was observed in the two decades analyzed, three out of four people who died by suicide were men. By age groups, the problem worsens at older ages. Half of all those who committed suicide were between 40 and 64 years old and those over 65 years old added up to 31%. The group between 25 and 39 years were 13.8% and those between 10 and 24, 5% of the total number of people who died from this cause.
The figures, the result of the investigative action of the SURVIVE consortium and the epidemiological surveillance action of the National Platform for the Study and Prevention of Suicide, also show regional differences. All the Galician provinces and Asturias and some of Castilla y León or Andalucía have rates of more than 10 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, above the Spanish average of 8.4 and the world average of 9. The worst figures of 2021 were registered in Lugo, with 15.6 per 100,000, Zamora, with 14.2 and Jaén, with 13.1.
Much more among foreigners
The data also indicate that there are more suicides in the hottest months or that foreigners have suffered a worsening of the problem well above nationals. While the number of suicides has grown by 6.5% since 2018 among Spaniards, it has skyrocketed by 24.3% among foreigners.
Among the interpretations offered by the authors to explain the worsening during the pandemic, they speculate that “the measures to control the spread of the virus”, such as confinements, social distancing measures or the resulting economic difficulties, “could be behind this effect”. In addition, they add, “it is the people in large cities and provincial capitals, where the implementation of pandemic control measures have led to a greater disruption of daily life, who have also seen a greater effect from the pandemic.” in suicide mortality.
In the data presented today, it is also observed that after a suicide peak in the year 2000, with 8.39 deaths from this cause per 100,000 inhabitants, there is a progressive decrease during the following decade until reaching a minimum of 6, 72 in 2010. As of the following year, the trend is reversed and 8.36 are reached in 2014, practically the same number that had been reached at the beginning of the 2000s and would return to in 2021.
“Now, you have to wait a year for psychotherapy sessions and the attention time dedicated to each patient has been shortened”
Javier Jiménez, president of the Association for Suicide Research, Prevention and Intervention
Javier Jiménez, clinical psychologist and president of the Association for Suicide Research, Prevention and Intervention (AIPIS), considers that the data collected in this study is far from showing the full dimension of the problem. Jiménez, who did not participate in the study, explains that “there are more than 8,000 accidental deaths, due to drowning, falls or excessive intake of medications, which are not registered as suicides and at least in some cases may be.” For this reason, the current data will not be closed until 2025 and “when the legal medicine institutes of Spain were asked, despite the fact that they only answered half, almost 500 suicides were found that were not registered in the INE ”.
To the difficulty of determining how a person found dead in the inner courtyard of their home died, we must add the stigma surrounding suicide, which often means that, in case of doubt, a death that could be self-inflicted is record as accidental. “In Spain, the main method of suicide is hanging, there are more than half of the 4,000, because hanging is very rare to occur by accident,” says Jiménez. The psychologist emphasizes that many speculations can be made about the figures for suicide and its causes, but there is still a lot of information missing and in some cases there has been a reversal. “In the 80s and 90s, a box was filled in in suicide cases with the cause and, although half of it was not known, in the other half, yes. Now we do not have that information, ”he points out.
Regarding the worsening of the suicide problem during the pandemic, Jiménez believes that there are many possible factors, among which he highlights that, due to the general worsening of the waiting lists caused during the crisis, many people at risk have been left helpless. “Now, you have to wait a year for psychotherapy sessions and the attention time dedicated to each patient has been shortened,” he explains. “That is replaced with psychoactive drugs, they give you an antidepressant or a lexatin. But it doesn’t work, because consumption has skyrocketed and suicides continue to rise, ”he says.
If you need help:
- Suicidal behavior hotline of the Ministry of Health:024
- Hope Telephone: 717 003 717
- Prevention, dissemination and training program of the Spanish Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide: www.prevensuic.org
- Web for mental health problems in young people: mind-u.cat
- Suicide Prevention Association the yellow girl.
- Anar Foundation, helps children and adolescents at risk. www.anar.org. Free help line for minors: 900 20 20 10
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