What should I know about suicide

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The act of intentionally ending one's own life because one does not want to live any more is called suicide. It is estimated that approximately 1 million lives are claimed by suicides every year, globally. This means that, somewhere in the world a person is committing suicide every 40 seconds. In addition to these numbers, there are at least 20 million failed suicide attempts every year - and numbers are rising.

Reliable figures are often difficult to find, since many families do not disclose the true nature of a suicide; for fear of harassment by police and/or social stigma.

While suicide rates in most first world countries are decreasing, they are increasing alarmingly in the less affluent countries.

Possible reasons for these alarming numbers are:

• poverty
• poor education (and therefore lack of job opportunities)
• rapid industrialization (leading to loss of many manual jobs)
• poor health services (very limited availability of mental health specialists and treatment for problems such as depression or anxiety)
• traditions and lack of understanding (people may be limited by the traditions of a country or society which refuses to accept them as they are)

Sources

• Felicitas Heyne, Psychologist
• Audiopedia ID: en020902