A Two Years' Survey On Self-Aggressive Acts, Suicides and Suicidal Threats in the Halifax District Between 1962 and 1964

Abstract

HIS paper is the first of a three-item parallel survey, comprising suicides, Tsuicidal threats (Samaritan Clientele) and suicidal attempts, that have occurred contemporaneously in the Halifax area between 1962 and 1964. To test the Null Hypothesis, suicidal attempts of all degrees were admitted under the generic term of Self-aggressive acts. Known incidence of Self-aggressive acts (S.A.)Between 1962 and 1964, 341 cases of S.As were admitted to our S.A. unit.Of these 222 were female (65 per cent) and 119 male (35 per cent), yielding a male/female ratio of 1 : 1.8. Over the same period there occurred 67 suicides in the Halifax district, of which 38 were men (57 per cent) and 29 women (43 per cent). Thus the ratio of suicides to known S.As would be 67 : 341 or roughly 1 : 5. Some self-aggressors are never referred to hospital or the psychiatrist, because the attempts were deemed too trivial by the general practitioner, or owing to the family's reluctance of publicity. Just how many of these camouflaged S.As occur each year is a matter for speculation, though Prof. Stengel's questionnaire to family doctors, urging full disclosure, may have shed some additional light on this matter.The ratio of Suicide/S.A. has been estimated by writers in different countries as ranging from 1: 5 to 1:10.~ 13 Thus the known Halifax incidence and ratio of 1 : 5 occupies the lowest margin. This may be significant as low S.A. rates may correlate with high suicide rates. However, our ratio of I : 5 is based on the local suicide rate. The number of 67 suicides for a two-year period in a population of 212,000 under survey, by far exceeds the national average of 11 : 100,000. According to the latter, one could have expected twenty-three suicides per annum and hence forty-six suicides for a two-year period. Our actual figure of 67 suicides shows an increase of 45 per cent above the national average and an annual rate of 16: 100,000 of England and Wales. Age distributionThe highest incidence of S.As in both sexes occurred in the 20-29 decade with a proportionally greater number of men (35.3 per cent) than women (25.5 per cent). We shall see later, that marriage problems are the chief precipitating causes for S.As and this decade, being the usual marrying age, lays a greater stress on both sexes; and more so on men as the chief bread winners.at UNIV ALABAMA LIBRARY/SERIALS on March 29, 2015 isp.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Suicide in England and Wales 1959–63 Part 1. The county boroughs

“…The age of the population, the role of economic difficulty, the distribution of the socioeconomic classes, and the size and rate of growth of (he communities have all been examined. Other work of a somewhat similar nature has been carried out in Oldham (Jennings and Lun, 1962), Bristol (Seager and Flood, 1965), Halifax (Ropschitz and Ovenstone, 1968), and Southend (Robin, Brooke, and Freeman-Browne, 1968). Stengel and Cook looked closely at the factors associated with different suicide rates in British towns and cities, which can remain surprisingly constant over a long period of time (Sainsbury, 1968).…”