Gender, marital status and ethnicity. A Swedish retrospective study of criminality, morbidity and mortality among victims of non-fatal firearm injuries.

OBJECTIVE

To study gender and ethnic aspects in a population consisting of patients treated for non-fatal firearm injuries at public hospitals in Stockholm, Sweden, during a period of 21 years.

DESIGN

Retrospective study. Ethnicity was defined as being a foreign-born individual or a native Swede. The morbidity and criminality data were analysed with unconditional logistic regression and the mortality data were analysed by a proportional hazard model.

RESULTS

Females and foreign-born persons were more often victims of attempted murder than males or native Swedes. Attempted suicide was more common among native Swedes. Male patients, single persons and Finnish immigrants treated for a firearm injury all showed an increased risk of being registered for criminality or committing a violent crime. There was no difference between native Swedes and foreign-born persons concerning the number of hospitalisations during the follow-up period. Living alone and being of male gender were associated with an increased risk of hospitalisation. Firearm victims, independently of ethnicity, had an increased mortality rate compared to a Swedish population; the standardised mortality ratio (SMR) for males was almost 3 and for females almost 8 compared to the SMR of 1 for the whole Swedish population.

CONCLUSION

Firearm victims constitute a population at risk from social, psychological as well as from medical points of view. The present study shows an association between gender, ethnicity, criminality, and morbidity among firearm victims underlining the importance of ethnic- and gender-specific violence prevention strategies.