Frequency of Methods of Suicide in Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) of WHO: A Systematic Review

The aim of this study was to perform a systematic review of articles about suicidal methods in countries of Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) of World Health Organization (WHO).

We used databases and hand searching. Several databases were searched، including Pub-Med/Medline، ISI Web of Science، CINAHL، PsycINFO، SCOPUS، ScienceDirect، OVID، EMRmedex and IMEMR as well as reference lists of the accessed articles. We searched «suicide»، Mesh words«of suicide and country names of EMR countries according to last classifications WHO country regions in 2010. Any article that reported frequency، partial frequency or percent of methods of suicde in people age above 15 years old in countries of EMR was selected. After deletion of duplications، 4152 articles were assessed by two independent assessors for title and abstract. Then 167 articles were selected for reviwing full text articles، from those articles، 19 were selected for data extraction. STROBE checklist (strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology) was used for quality assessments of those articles. Data extraction was conducted with two researchers، independently.

Hanging، poisoning and self-immolation are the most methods in most of the studies.

Partial frequency of methods of suicide showed heterogeneity among countries and between genders.