Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychiatric Services Aargau AG, Brugg-Windisch, Switzerland.
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University of Zurich, Zurich Switzerland.
Eur J Public Health. 2023 Jun 1;33(3):424-429. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckad042.
Major sporting events are postulated to reduce suicide rates by increased social connectedness, by identifying with winning teams, or, conversely, to increase suicide rates by the 'broken promise effect'.
In our observational epidemiological study, we investigated changes in suicide rates between 1970 and 2017 in Austria, Germany and Switzerland during the European and World Soccer Championships in general, and on days that the home team played, won or lost.
Combining all three studied nations no statistically significant change in the incidence of daily suicides during soccer championships compared to a control period was noted (38.29 ± 9.02 vs. 37.33 ± 10.58; incidence risk ratio = 1.03; 95% confidence interval: 1.01-1.05, P = 0.05). Essentially, no differences in the expected directions were found, and none remained statistically significant after correcting for multiple comparisons in subgroups for country, age and gender in all three studied countries. Compared to a control period, neither a significant difference in the respective national suicide rate was found after Germany's four championship victories nor after Austria's emotional only win over Germany.
Our results do not support the assumption of increased social connectedness and, thus, lowered suicide risk during major sporting events or changes in suicide risk depending on the outcome of important games as predicted by the broken promise effect or changes in self-efficacy by identification with winning teams.
大型体育赛事被认为通过增强社会联系、认同获胜队伍，从而降低自杀率；或者相反，通过“承诺破裂效应”增加自杀率。
在我们的观察性流行病学研究中，我们调查了 1970 年至 2017 年期间，在奥地利、德国和瑞士，欧洲和世界杯足球锦标赛期间以及主场球队比赛、获胜或输球日的自杀率变化。
综合三个研究国家，在足球锦标赛期间与对照期相比，每日自杀发生率没有统计学意义的变化（38.29 ± 9.02 与 37.33 ± 10.58；发病率风险比 = 1.03；95%置信区间：1.01-1.05，P=0.05）。本质上，在三个研究国家的亚组中，按国家、年龄和性别进行多次比较校正后，没有发现预期方向的差异，也没有任何差异具有统计学意义。与对照期相比，德国四次夺冠后，以及奥地利仅以情感战胜德国后，德国和奥地利均未发现各自国家的自杀率有显著差异。
我们的结果不支持在重大体育赛事期间社会联系增强从而降低自杀风险的假设，也不支持“承诺破裂效应”或通过认同获胜队伍改变自我效能感所预测的重要比赛结果变化导致自杀风险变化的假设。
