Unemployment as a risk factor for completed suicide: a psychological autopsy study.

This study adopts a psychological autopsy method to compare (1) unemployed suicides, (2) other suicides who were either employed or not in the labor force, and (3) psychiatric outpatients without any prior suicidal behavior. A total of 245 consecutive suicides from Province of Parma (Italy) with recorded employment status were included in the analysis. The control group included 41 psychiatric outpatients aged 18 to 64 years, who had not engaged in any previous suicidal act, and who were unemployed. The unemployed suicides had a risk 17 times higher to have had financial problems in the last 12 months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.0/149.5; p < 0.01) than other suicides. Unemployed suicides (compared to living unemployed controls) were 10 times more likely to have had poor social support (95% CI: 1.7/56.1; p < 0.01), 16 times more likely to have had any stressful life events in the past 12 months (95% CI: 2.5/103.9; p < 0.01), and 22 times more likely to have a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (95% CI: 2.4/203.2; p < 0.01). New suicide prevention strategies for those who are facing job loss need to focus on social support and personality disorders, as well as hopelessness and despair.

Suicide in the old elderly: results from one Italian county.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate factors differentiating old-old elderly (those aged 75 years and older) who died by suicide from middle-aged (those aged 50-64 years) and young-old (aged 65-74 years) adults who took their own lives, and from living psychiatric outpatients 75 years and older who had no suicidal behaviors in the last 12 months before assessment. METHODS: Cases for psychological autopsy interviews were 117 old-old elderly who died by suicide between 1994 and 2009. Comparisons were 97 young-old adult and 98 middle-aged suicide victims and 117 psychiatric outpatients admitted to the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Parma (Parma, Italy) between 1994 and 2009. Information for suicide decedents was gathered through proxy-based interviews, and data regarding living comparison subjects were extracted from medical records. RESULTS: A high number of old-old elderly were widowed and lived alone before death; widowhood was more prevalent in the old-old elderly than in the younger suicide groups and the psychiatric outpatients. In addition, old-old elderly were more frequently characterized by the presence of life stressors in the few months before death compared with the psychiatric outpatients. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians involved in the prevention of suicide in older adults should pay particular attention to loneliness and lack of social support, two conditions that may push the individual to feel hopeless, especially in those individuals who are facing stressful life events.