The study of epidemiological and geographical pattern of suicide attempt in Mashhad, Iran: 2016

The suicide attempt is one of the crucial public health dilemmas. The present study investigated the epidemiological and geographical pattern of suicide attempts in Mashhad in 2016.

In this cross-sectional study, pre-hospital information of suicide attempts was registered in the disaster and emergency medical management centers (115) of Mashhad, Iran was collected.  Other information was obtained from the medical records department of Imam Reza Hospital as the only reference hospital for trauma and poisoning in Mashhad. Conventional statistical methods were used in the statistical analysis of data. Spatial analysis was used in Arc GIS software to investigate the geographical distribution of suicide attempts.

 A total of 2,785 cases of suicide attempts, 64.7% (1801) of whom were women. The highest frequency of suicide attempts was in the age groups of 15 to 24 (N=799, 39.1%) and 25 to 34 years (N=720, 35.2%). In general, married people (N=1635, 58.7%), high school literacy level (N=821, 29.5%), and homemakers (N=1186, 42.6%) had the highest percentage of suicide attempts. The most common method of suicide was drug poisoning (N=1736 84.9%). The geographical distribution of suicide attempts showed that the highest suicide attempts were reported in the northeastern and suburbs of Mashhad.

The present study results showed that suicide attempts in young age groups and women are very serious. On the other hand, the incidence of suicide attempts was different in all individuals and also separately for men and women in different geographical areas of Mashhad.