Suicidality in the Arab World part II: Community studies

This paper reviews hospital and government based articles on suicidality in the Arab world. A systematic search was conducted up to 2006 [Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and United Arab Emirates]. Results varied across countries and methods. The Arab hospital studies, estimated annual rates of attempted suicide ranging from 1.9/100, 000 to 127/100, 000. The Arab police and government records reported annual completed suicide rates of 1.1/100, 000 to 6.2/100, 000. Several risk factors were identified. While in hospital based studies, attempt was related to being single, aged 15-25 years, primary to secondary level education, students, housewives, unemployed, belonging to over-crowded large families, and having a low socio-economic status. In addition, many psychiatric disorders were identified as risk factors, most commonly depressive disorders, adjustment, personality, and drug dependence/abuse disorders. Completed suicide victims were more frequently males, 20 to 40 years old, single, manual workers and unemployed. In conclusion, accurate recording methodology in hospitals and governmental institutions are needed to assess the prevalence and risk factors of suicidal behaviours in the Arab World

Suicidality in the Arab World part I: community studies

This paper reviews published community based studies that assessed suicidality in the Arab world. A search was conducted on several search engines [PubMed, Psychinfo, IDRAAC WEB/CD] up to 2006 [Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and United Arab Emirates]. Results varied across countries and methods. In Arab community studies, the prevalence of lifetime suicide ideation varied from a low of 2.09% to a high of 13.9% and the lifetime prevalence of attempts from 0.72% to 6.3%. In about all community studies which assessed lifetime and 12 months suicide, ideation was significantly related to being a female. Twelve month suicide ideation was significantly related to depressive symptoms and experiencing more life events, illnesses and using more tranquilizers/sleeping pills. One month's suicide ideation was related to non-married status, not having children and a history of psychiatric disorders, specifically MDD, dysthymia, agoraphobia, OCD and GAD. When compared to female university students, females who were displaced or refugees were significantly more likely to report suicide ideation [within the "past few weeks"]. In conclusion, national epidemiological studies are needed to assess the prevalence and risk factors of suicidal behaviors in the Arab World