Lucas, KULeuven, Belgium.
J Affect Disord. 2011 Jun;131(1-3):120-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2010.11.003. Epub 2010 Dec 3.
National suicide data are an underestimation of the actual number of suicides but are often assumed to be reliable and useful for scientific research. The aim of this study is to contribute to the discussion of the reliability of suicide mortality data by comparing railway suicides from two data sources.
Data for the railway suicides and the concurrent causes of death of fifteen European countries were collected from the European Detailed Mortality Database and the European Railway Agency (ERA). Suicide rates, odds ratios and confidence intervals were calculated.
The suicide data from the ERA were significantly higher than the national data for six out of fifteen countries. In three countries, the ERA registered significantly more railway suicides compared to the sum of the national suicides and undetermined deaths. In Italy and France, the ERA statistics recorded significantly more railway related fatalities than the national statistical offices. In total the ERA statistics registered 34% more suicides and 9% more railway fatalities compared with the national statistics.
The findings of this study concern railway suicides and they cannot be extrapolated to all types of suicides. Further, the national suicide statistics and the ERA data are not perfectly comparable, due to the different categorisations of the causes of death.
Based on the data for railway suicides, it seems that the underestimation of suicide rates is significant for some countries, and that the degree of underestimation differs substantially among countries. Caution is needed when comparing national suicide rates. There is a need for standardisation of national death registration procedures at the European level.
全国自杀数据是对实际自杀人数的低估，但通常被认为是可靠且可用于科学研究的。本研究旨在通过比较来自两个数据源的铁路自杀事件，为自杀死亡率数据的可靠性讨论做出贡献。
从欧洲详细死亡率数据库和欧洲铁路管理局（ERA）收集了来自十五个欧洲国家的铁路自杀和同期死亡原因的数据。计算了自杀率、优势比和置信区间。
ERA 的自杀数据明显高于十五个国家中的六个国家的国家数据。在三个国家中，ERA 登记的铁路自杀人数明显多于国家自杀人数和未确定死因的总和。在意大利和法国，ERA 的统计数据记录的铁路相关死亡人数明显多于国家统计局。ERA 统计数据总共比国家统计数据登记的自杀人数多 34%，铁路死亡人数多 9%。
本研究的发现仅涉及铁路自杀事件，不能外推至所有类型的自杀事件。此外，由于死因分类不同，国家自杀统计数据和 ERA 数据并不完全可比。
根据铁路自杀数据，一些国家的自杀率低估程度很大，而且各国之间的低估程度差异很大。在比较国家自杀率时需要谨慎。需要在欧洲层面标准化国家死亡登记程序。
