The effect of seasonal changes and climatic factors on suicide attempts of young people

Akkaya-Kalayci, Türkan; Vyssoki, Benjamin; Winkler, Dietmar; Willeit, Matthäus; Kapusta, Nestor D.; Dorffner, Georg; Özlü-Erkilic, Zeliha

doi:10.1186/s12888-017-1532-7

Cited by 44 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Previous studies mentioned that as the temperature rose, suicidal behaviors were increased because the excitability of the central nervous system extended [37,38]. Moreover, suicide attempts increased because higher temperature caused impulsivity and disinhibition [26,39], and this was related to serotonin neurotransmitter [40][41][42][43]. These studies are consistent with our findings that maximum temperatures in autumn and winter influenced suicide attempts.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Seasonal Variation of Relationship between Climate and Suicide Attempts

et al. 2020

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Suicide is a worldwide problem. According to WHO statistics, 800,000 suicides occurred in 2015 [1]. Suicide rate of South Korea is 28.7 per 100,000 people, 2.4 times the OECD average suicide rate, the highest among OECD countries since 2003 [2]. According to Bertolote et al. [3], depression is the overt cause of suicide worldwide and accounts for 30%. However, in addition to psychiatric disorders such as depressive disorder, various causes are involved in suicide. Socioeconomic, genetic, environmental and bioclimatic factors can lead to suicide [4-8]. Among bio-climatic component, particularly in terms of meteorology, previous studies have reported that suicide shows seasonality. And many studies have shown that suicide rates peak in spring and early summer [7,9-11]. These meteorological factors include temperature, sunlight, solar radiation, air pressure, precipitation, humidity, and airpollutants [12-14]. Recent studies have focused on the link between the climate factor and the neuroendocrine system [15,16]. Serotonin is a neu

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Seasonal Variation of Relationship between Climate and Suicide Attempts

et al. 2020

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“…Several evidences described seasonal and climatic-related variations in suicidality, with different patterns in men and women (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). Of note, climate and weather seem to independently influence suicidal behavior, both in psychiatric patients and in the general population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity to Climate and Weather Changes in Euthymic Bipolar Subjects: Association With Suicide Attempts

et al. 2020

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Background: Climate and weather are known to affect multiple areas of human life, including mental health. In bipolar disorder (BD), seasonality represents an environmental trigger for mood switches, and climatic variables may contribute to recurrences. Several studies reported seasonal and climatic-related variations in the rate of suicide attempts. Suicide risk is relevant in BD, with approximately 25% of patients attempting suicide. Therefore, this study aimed to assess sensitivity to weather and climatic variations in BD subjects and its relationship with lifetime suicide attempts. Methods: Three hundred fifty-two euthymic BD and 352 healthy control subjects, homogeneous with respect to socio-demographic characteristics, were enrolled. All participants were administered the METEO-Questionnaire (METEO-Q) to evaluate susceptibility to weather and climatic changes. We also investigated the potential relationship between sensitivity to climate and weather and lifetime suicide attempts in BD patients. Results: METEO-Q scores and the number of subjects reaching the cutoff for meteorosensitivity/meteoropathy were significantly higher in BD patients. Within the clinical group, BD subjects with lifetime suicide attempts obtained higher METEO-Q scores, with no differences between BD-I and BD-II. The number of suicide attempts directly correlated with METEO-Q scores. The presence of suicide attempts was associated with the physical and psychological symptoms related to weather variations. Discussion: Our findings support the relevance of sensitivity to weather and climate variations in a large sample of BD subjects and point out the association of this feature with lifetime suicide attempts.

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“…Seasonally-uctuating factors that could regulate these temporal patterns are temperature and sunlight. Warm temperatures attenuate risk for circulatory system-related morbidity and mortality [28,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52] and warm temperatures, especially abnormally warm temperatures during cool months, increase risk, including short-term risk, for suicide [36,37,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. Sunlight similarly moderates circulatory disease-related morbidity and mortality [29,44,[66][67][68] and suicide risk [53,[69][70][71][72][73][74][75] and may contribute to the temporal cross-correlations we detected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal patterns of suicide and circulatory system disease-related mortality are inversely correlated in several countries

Kaufman

Fitzmaurice

2020

Preprint

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Background Nearly 800,000 suicides occur worldwide annually and suicide rates are increasing faster than population growth. Unfortunately, the pathophysiology of suicide remains poorly understood, which has hindered suicide prevention efforts. However, mechanistic clues may be found by studying effects of seasonality on suicide and other mortality causes. Suicides tend to peak in spring-summer periods and nadir in fall-winter periods while circulatory system disease-related mortality tends to exhibit the opposite temporal trends. This study aimed to determine for the first time whether monthly temporal cross-correlations exist between suicide and circulatory system disease-related mortality at the population level. If so and if common biological factors moderate risks for both mortality types, such factors may be discoverable and utilized to improve suicide prevention.Methods We conducted time series analyses of monthly mortality data from northern (England and Wales, South Korea, United States) and southern (Australia, Brazil) hemisphere countries during the period 2009-2018 (N=41.8 million all-cause mortality cases). We used a Poisson regression variant of the standard cosinor model to determine cross-correlations between monthly mortality rates from suicide and from circulatory system diseases.Results Suicide and circulatory disease-related mortality temporal patterns were negatively correlated in Australia (-0.32), Brazil (-0.57), South Korea (-0.32), and in the United States (-0.66), but no temporal correlation was discernable in England and Wales.Conclusions The negative temporal cross-correlations between these mortality types we found in 4 of 5 countries studied suggest that seasonal factors broadly and inversely moderate risks for circulatory disease-related mortality and suicide. Since the seasonal factors of temperature and light exert opposite effects on suicide and circulatory disease-related mortality in several countries, we propose that physiologically-adaptive circulatory system responses to heat and light may increase risk for suicide and should be studied to determine whether they affect suicide risk. For example, heat and light increase production and release of the bioactive gas nitric oxide and reduce circulatory system disease by relaxing blood vessel tone, while elevated nitric oxide levels are associated with suicidal behavior, inverse effects that parallel the inverse temporal mortality patterns we detected.

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The effect of seasonal changes and climatic factors on suicide attempts of young people

Cited by 44 publications

References 52 publications

Seasonal Variation of Relationship between Climate and Suicide Attempts

Seasonal Variation of Relationship between Climate and Suicide Attempts

Sensitivity to Climate and Weather Changes in Euthymic Bipolar Subjects: Association With Suicide Attempts

Temporal patterns of suicide and circulatory system disease-related mortality are inversely correlated in several countries

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