Institute of Health Behaviors and Community Sciences, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Psychiatric Research Center, Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Graduate School of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Japan.
J Affect Disord. 2021 Mar 1;282:795-802. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.12.147. Epub 2020 Dec 29.
Suicides by carbon monoxide poisoning from burning charcoal increased markedly and contributed to a rise in overall suicides in Taiwan in the early 2000s. A previous study indicated short-term effectiveness on reducing suicides of a charcoal restriction programme, which involved voluntary actions from large chain retail stores to move charcoal bags from open shelves to locked cabinets starting from 1st May 2012, in New Taipei City, Taiwan. We investigated the longer-term effect of this programme.
We calculated quarterly age-standardised charcoal-burning and overall suicide rates in New Taipei City and two comparison cities in 2007-2017. Controlled interrupted time-series analysis was used to examine the effect of the charcoal restriction programme.
There was no difference between the intervention and comparison cities in step changes in the rates (per 100,000) of charcoal-burning suicide (intervention minus comparison = -0.336, 95% confidence interval -1.173 to 0.502) and overall suicide (-0.270, -1.844 to 1.303) after the intervention, or changes in trends (slopes) in charcoal-burning suicide rates (0.007, -0.055 to 0.069) and overall suicide rates (0.049, -0.138 to 0.236) before and after the intervention.
There was no legislative requirement to enforce the charcoal restriction. The programme was also restricted to a subset of retail stores.
The charcoal restriction programme in New Taipei City showed no effect on reducing charcoal-burning or overall suicides in the five years after its implementation. Future means restriction strategies for suicide prevention should optimise the programme sustainability, ensure the comprehensive means restriction, and monitor the long-term intervention effectiveness.
21 世纪初，台湾因燃烧木炭导致一氧化碳中毒自杀的人数显著增加，进而导致整体自杀率上升。此前的一项研究表明，2012 年 5 月 1 日起，台湾新北市大型连锁零售店自愿采取行动，将木炭袋从开放式货架移到上锁的柜子里，这种木炭限购方案在短期内对降低自杀率有一定效果。本研究旨在调查该方案的长期效果。
我们计算了 2007-2017 年新北市和两个对照城市每季度的标准化烧炭自杀率和总体自杀率。采用控制中断时间序列分析来检验木炭限购方案的效果。
在干预和对照城市之间，干预后烧炭自杀率（干预组减对照组= -0.336，95%置信区间 -1.173 至 0.502）和总体自杀率（-0.270，-1.844 至 1.303）的变化率（每 10 万人）没有差异，或者烧炭自杀率（斜率 0.007，-0.055 至 0.069）和总体自杀率（斜率 0.049，-0.138 至 0.236）的变化趋势在干预前后也没有差异。
该方案并没有立法要求强制执行。该方案也只限于部分零售店。
新北市的木炭限购方案在实施后的五年内对降低烧炭自杀或总体自杀率没有效果。未来预防自杀的手段限制策略应优化方案的可持续性，确保全面的手段限制，并监测长期的干预效果。
