An Epidemiologic Study of Suicide in Cities under Mashhad ?University of Medical Sciences ?Supervision.?

Background and Aims: Suicide is one of the most important community health problems which is related to many ?different factors in different communities.The present studyaimed to describe the ?epidemiological data of suicides and suicide attempts in Mashhad University of Medical ?Sciences in 2011 and 2012.? Materials and Methods In this cross-sectional study, the demographic and epidemiological data of suicide and ?attempted suicide during the 2-year period from March 2012 to March 2014 based on the health ?system database was collected. Data was analyzed by SPSS, version 19. Descriptive statistics ?and Chi-squared test were used for data analysis. P-values less than 0.05 were considered ?significant.? Results: A total of 5354 cases of suicide and attempted suicide were analyzed. There were 120 (2.2%) ?completed suicides. 72.1% of attempted suicide were among women. But in completed (fatal) ?suicides just over 70% were among men. The most usual method of attempted suicide among ?both males and females was drug overdose.The most common methods of suicide were hanging ??(52.2%) for men and self-burning (16.5%) for women. More than 86%of attempted suicide and ??72% of all suicide cases were in the age group 15 to 34 years.? Conclusion:The findings of this study highlight the need for further studies to identifypopulation at high risk ?for suicide as the first step towards planning a well-organized approach toreduce the suicide ?rate.?