The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdowns on Self-Poisoning and Suicide in Sri Lanka: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 20(3)2023 01 19.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2244460
ABSTRACT
Evidence from high-income countries suggests that the impact of COVID-19 on suicide and self-harm has been limited, but evidence from low- and middle-income countries is lacking. Using data from a hospital-based self-poisoning register (January 2019-December 2021) and data from national records (2016-2021) of suicide in Sri Lanka, we aimed to assess the impact of the pandemic on both self-poisoning and suicide. We examined changes in admissions for self-poisoning and suicide using interrupted time series (ITS) analysis. For the self-poisoning hospital admission ITS models, we defined the lockdown periods as follows (i) pre-lockdown 01/01/2019-19/03/2020; (ii) first lockdown 20/03/2020-27/06/2020; (iii) post-first lockdown 28/06/2020-11/05/2021; (iv) second lockdown 12/05/2021-21/06/2021; and (v) post-second lockdown 22/06/2021-31/12/2021. For suicide, we defined the intervention according to the pandemic period. We found that during lockdown periods, there was a reduction in hospital admissions for self-poisoning, with evidence that admission following self-poisoning remained lower during the pandemic than would be expected based on pre-pandemic trends. In contrast, there was no evidence that the rate of suicide in the pandemic period differed from that which would be expected. As the long-term socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic are realised, it will be important to track rates of self-harm and suicide in LMICs to inform prevention.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Suicide
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ijerph20031833
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