Lahti Anniina, Räsänen Pirkko, Karvonen Kaisa, Särkioja Terttu, Meyer-Rochow V Benno, Hakko Helinä
Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital, University of Oulu, FI-90029 Oulu, Finland.
Neuropsychobiology. 2006;54(2):140-6. doi: 10.1159/000098265. Epub 2007 Jan 3.
Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among adolescents worldwide. Studies on the seasonal pattern of youth suicides are rare and the results are very contradictory and heterogeneous. Generally, suicide methods affect the pattern of suicide seasonality. Shooting is the most common suicide method among Finnish adolescents. We investigated whether shooting suicides of victims aged less than 18 years are correlated with a specific period of the year. Also, the seasonal pattern of shooting suicides in adolescents was compared with that of adult victims. Our data comprised 42 adolescent suicide victims and, for comparison, 1,926 adult suicide victims over the years 1988 to 2004 from Northern Finland. Of these, 59.5% (n = 25) of the adolescents and 28.8% (n = 554) of the adults had committed suicide by shooting. We observed that shooting suicides among the under-aged showed a significant peak in autumn (ratio 2.70, 95% CI: 1.97-3.42), while those of adult victims peaked in spring (ratio 1.19, 95% CI: 1.05-1.35). The monthly pattern of suicides correlated significantly with the mean duration of daily sunshine hours (trailing by 3 months) in the under-aged (r = 0.67, p = 0.016), but not in the adults (r = 0.06, p = 0.854). The role of firearm availability, psychosocial factors such as start of the school year, and some biological factors are discussed.
自杀是全球青少年主要死因之一。关于青少年自杀季节性模式的研究很少，结果非常矛盾且参差不齐。一般来说，自杀方式会影响自杀季节性模式。枪击是芬兰青少年最常见的自杀方式。我们调查了18岁以下受害者的枪击自杀是否与一年中的特定时期相关。此外，还比较了青少年枪击自杀的季节性模式与成年受害者的情况。我们的数据包括1988年至2004年来自芬兰北部的42名青少年自杀受害者，作为比较，还有1926名成年自杀受害者。其中，青少年中有59.5%（n = 25）和成年中有28.8%（n = 554）是枪击自杀。我们观察到，未成年人群体中的枪击自杀在秋季出现显著高峰（比率2.70，95%置信区间：1.97 - 3.42），而成年受害者的枪击自杀高峰出现在春季（比率1.19，95%置信区间：1.05 - 1.35）。未成年人群体中自杀的月度模式与每日日照平均时长（滞后3个月）显著相关（r = 0.67，p = 0.016），而成年人群体中则不然（r = 0.06，p = 0.854）。文中还讨论了枪支可得性、诸如学年开始等社会心理因素以及一些生物学因素的作用。
