Suicide Attempts and Deaths in Sofala, Mozambique, From 2011 to 2014

Abstract

Background Mozambique was recently estimated to have the highest suicide rate in Africa. Aims To fill a knowledge gap on suicide attempts and deaths in Mozambique. Method We reviewed a census of 898 emergency psychiatric consultations from March 2013 to July 2014 and 1,173 violent death autopsy records from June 2011 to August 2014 at Beira Central Hospital in Sofala, Mozambique. Results In all, 18.0% of emergency psychiatric consultations were suicide attempts. Females were disproportionately represented (68.3%, p < .001), and the mean age was 26.8 years. Rat poison was used in 66% of attempts, followed by unspecified methods (19.8%), and unspecified poisoning (6.8%). Of the violent death autopsies, 10% were suicides. Suicide deaths were more likely to be male (67.3%, p < .001), and the mean age was 30.8 years. Common methods were hanging (43.2%), unspecified substance (28.0%), or rat poison (26.3%). Common places of death were the hospital or hospital transit (46.4%) and the household (35.7%). Female suicide deaths more often involved toxic substances and males more often employed hanging. Conclusion Females more often present with suicide attempts, but deaths due to suicide are more frequent among males. Females more often use toxic substances, whereas males more often use lethal methods, such as hanging. Policies to reduce the availability or toxicity of rat poison should be considered.

Depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, and mental health care-seeking in central Mozambique

“…Other commonly cited risk factors in LMICs include youth or old age, low levels of education, being unmarried, previous suicide attempts, family history of psychopathology, and stressful life events [11,[13][14][15]. It has also been reported in a number of studies in both LMICs and high-income countries (HICs) that females have higher rates of suicidal ideation and behavior than males, but males have higher mortality rates from suicide than females [16,17].…”

“…In the Mozambican population, there is limited research on suicide and common mental disorders, such as depression. To our knowledge, there is currently only one peer-reviewed publication describing factors associated with suicidal attempts and deaths in Mozambique [17]. This paper focused at the clinic level and was limited in geographic scope.…”

Distinct psychopathology of patients who attempted suicide with rodenticide in Taiwan: a comparative study with patients of suicide with paraquat

“…Moreover, rodenticide is traditionally grouped within the category of pesticides in suicide research,8,15,16 making suicide by rodenticide a less-studied method regarding both underlying psychopathology and other relevant patient characteristics. Therefore, it is imperative to have a complete psychiatric evaluation of suicide by rodenticide 17,18…”

“…Therefore, it is imperative to have a complete psychiatric evaluation of suicide by rodenticide. 17 , 18 …”

Incorporating selected non-communicable diseases into facility-based surveillance systems from a resource-limited setting in Africa

“…Formal training and group discussions were used to discuss the topics and the hospital readiness to report on diseases targeted by the WHO Global Action Plan for the prevention and control of NCD 2013–2020 [10], prioritized in the Mozambique’s NCD Control Program [9] and adopted by the African Governments [11], but also to identify other conditions of interest to the group. Considering research data available, human resources available, diagnostic capacity and health worker’s perception of clinical relevance, we then selected the conditions that would be targeted for surveillance, namely: arterial hypertension, asthma, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, mental illnesses (depression, psychosis, epilepsy and alcohol abuse) and stroke [1–3, 12–19] (Table 1). One week before the starting of data collection a one-day workshop was delivered separately to clinicians – to review the updated registration books and the use of the international classification of diseases (ICD-10) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICD-10] – and to administrative workers and nurses – to train data extraction from registration books, building of daily reports, and use an Epi Info V.7 database for data entry.…”