[Suicide due to mental diseases based on the Vital Statistics Survey Death Form].

OBJECTIVES

Mental diseases such as schizophrenia and depression put patients at risk for suicide. It is extremely important to understand that one way of preventing suicide is to determine the actual mental state of the individual. The purpose of this study was to analyze the true mental state of suicide victims reported in the vital statistics.

METHODS

This study investigated the vital statistics of 30,299 suicide victims in Japan in 2008. The use of these basic statistics for non-statistical purposes was approved by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The method involved reviewing the Vital Statistics Survey Death Form at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as well as analyzing their Online Reporting of Vital Statistics. Furthermore, this study was able to validate 29,799 of the 30,299 suicides (98.3%) that occurred in 2008. Mental diseases were validated not only from the "Cause of death" section as marked on the death certificate, but also by information found in sections for "Additional items for death by external cause" and "Other special remarks." RESULTS; From the Vital Statistics Survey Death Form and Online Reporting of Vital Statistics, 2964 individuals with either a mental disease or mental disorder were identified. Of the 2964 identified individuals, 55 had dementia (of which 13 were dementia in Alzheimer's disease), 116 had alcohol dependence/psychotic disorder, 550 had schizophrenia, 101 had bipolar affective disorder, 1,913 has had a depressive episode, 13 had obsessive-compulsive disorder, 22 had adjustment disorders, 14 had eating disorders, 49 had nonorganic sleep disorders, 24 had personality disorder, and 6 had pervasive developmental disorders. In addition, 125 individuals had more than one mental disease. The national police statistics from 2008 show that 1,368 suicide victims had schizophrenia and

CONCLUSION

6,490 had depression. These figures show quite a difference between the results of this study and the police statistics. Further, there have been controversies regarding autopsies of suicide victims. Thus, further investigation into the cause of death is of great importance.