School and seasonality in youth suicide: evidence from Japan
School and seasonality in youth suicide: evidence from Japan
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DOI：
10.1136/jech-2016-207583
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发表时间：
2016-11-01
影响因子：
6.3
通讯作者：
Yoshikawa, Kanako
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Matsubayashi, Tetsuya;Ueda, Michiko;Yoshikawa, Kanako
背景青少年自杀的季节性被推测与学校日历有关，因为自杀倾向于在学年开始或长时间休息后增加，但强有力的实证证据仍然缺乏。方法我们检查了日本生命统计中的全国死亡记录，以调查青少年自杀的季节性模式。我们的数据集包括1974年至2014年期间死于6-26岁日本人的108 968起自杀事件。每天的死亡频率是根据日本的校历绘制的，校历几乎没有地区和时间上的变化。结果中学生(12-15岁)和高中生(15-18岁)的自杀频率在4月和9月开学前后急剧增加。在放学期间，这些指标往往较低。回归分析的结果表明，与7月份的基线周相比，暑假结束和第二学期开始时，中学生自杀死亡的可能性增加了一倍以上。同样，高中生的自杀频率在暑假结束时也增加了类似的40%。重要的是，18-26岁的青少年没有发现这种模式。结论我们的研究结果强烈表明，青少年自杀的周期性模式与学校日历密切相关。
Background Seasonality in youth suicide has been speculated to be associated with the school calendar, as it tends to increase at the beginning of the academic year or after a long break, but robust empirical evidence remains scarce.Methods We examined the nationwide death records in the Vital Statistics of Japan to investigate the seasonal patterns of suicide among youth. Our data set included 108 968 suicides by individuals who died at 6-26 years of age between 1974 and 2014 in Japan. The daily frequencies of death were plotted against the Japanese school calendar, which has little regional and temporal variations. We also estimated a Poisson regression model to uncover the cyclical patterns of suicide deaths.Results We found that the frequencies of suicide by middle school students (ages 12-15 years) and high school students (ages 15-18 years) sharply increased around the dates when a school session began in April and September. These tended to be low during school breaks. The results of regression analysis suggested middle school students were more than twice as likely to die by suicide when the summer break ended and the second semester began, compared with the baseline week in July. Similarly, the frequency of suicide for high school students also increased by similar to 40% at the end of the summer break. Importantly, no such pattern was found for those aged 18-26 years.Conclusions Our findings strongly indicate that the cyclical pattern of youth suicide is closely related to the school calendar.