Background The last 10 years have seen an increase in the number of suicides in the US Armed Forces. Accordingly, the topic of suicides in the German military has received a lot of attention in media and science alike. Methods This study retrospectively examined all suicides (N = 107) committed by active, nonretired German military personnel from 2010 to the end of 2014, analyzing archived medical records. In a second step, these data were compared to a representative German Armed Forces survey conducted in 2012 (N = 1,549). Results The following risk groups for suicide were identified: male (OR = 9.6), single (OR = 7.8), aged over 45 years (OR = 4.0), short period of service (<2 years; OR = 2.7), and low level of education (OR = 2.2). Surprisingly, military personnel with little experience in deployments abroad (<2 missions) showed double the risk (OR = 2.0) compared to those who had been deployed more than once. Discussion Multiple robustness checks show that being single, aged over 45 years, and having obtained a low level of education exhibit the most robust effects on suicide risk. Conclusion Efforts should be made to develop and evaluate risk group‐focused prevention programs. We conclude, that further studies should be initiated to show differences of risk groups between lethal and nonlethal suicidal behavior.
Studies identified service members of the United States (US) Armed Forces as a high-risk group for suicide. A significant increase in the suicide rate in the US Armed Forces was found in recent years. To date, there is no military suicide statistic available for the German Armed Forces. This study examined attempted and completed suicides in active service members of the German Armed Forces between 2010 and 2016 retrospectively, on the basis of archived personal and medical records in the central archives of the Medical Service of German Armed Forces. The primary goal was to establish a suicide-statistic for the German Armed Forces and to calculate and compare the suicides rates with the German population. Secondary every case’s data was analysed the groups of attempted and completed suicides were compared. 262 attempted suicides and 148 completed suicides were included in this study (N = 410). The suicide rates of the German Armed Forces peaked over the years 2014–2015 with a suicide rate of 15–16/100.000 active military service members and exceeded the civilian suicide rate in Germany of around 12/100.000 people during those years, although no general trend could be determined. These service members were mostly young men (attempted suicide 81.7%, completed suicide 99.3%), at the age of 17 - <35 years old (87% attempted suicide, 68,3% completed suicide), and were employed less than 6 years in the German Armed Forces (attempted suicide 72.9%, completed suicide 46.3%). Service members with attempted suicides belonged mostly to the military North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-rank-group for other ranks (lowermost military professionals) OR-1 –OR-4 (48.1%) or to the rank-group OR-6 –OR-9 in the group of completed suicides (34.5%). Only in about one third of cases a psychiatric diagnosis could be found in the records. Most frequent diagnoses were neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders (International Classification of Diseases Tenth Revision^ICD-10: F4) in 46.8%, and affective disorders (ICD-10: F3) in 43.3% of all cases. In the majority of cases there were signs for potential stressors in the private sector (attempted suicide 90.6%, completed suicide 82.6%). No typical risk factors which would enable a specific prevention could be identified in this analysis. Therefore, should preventive strategies be aiming at a multi-level intervention program.
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