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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 7/2014

01-10-2014 | Original Paper

Suicidality in the prospective Zurich study: prevalence, risk factors and gender

Authors: Jules Angst, Michael P. Hengartner, Jonathan Rogers, Ulrich Schnyder, Hans-Christoph Steinhausen, Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross, Wulf Rössler

Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience | Issue 7/2014

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Abstract

Our prospective Zurich study (1978–2008) found that suicidal ideation had occurred in 40.5 % and suicide attempts in 6.6 % of the population by age 50. Important gender differences were found in both suicidality and its risk factors. Suicide attempts were earlier and more frequent among women than among men: 70 versus 44 % reported their first suicide attempt before 20. For women, the relative risk of suicide attempts was 1.6, but the relative risk of suicidal ideation was about equal (1.1 for women). The main risk factors for suicidal ideation in women were low social support (OR 4.0) and frequent punishment in childhood (OR 3.7), and in men, a depressive (OR 6.5) and an anxious personality (OR 4.6). The main risk factors for suicide attempts in women were a broken home (OR 10.2) and sexual abuse/violence (OR 7.9) in childhood; in men, no multivariate analyses of suicide attempt were conducted because of insufficient statistical power.
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Metadata
Title
Suicidality in the prospective Zurich study: prevalence, risk factors and gender
Authors
Jules Angst
Michael P. Hengartner
Jonathan Rogers
Ulrich Schnyder
Hans-Christoph Steinhausen
Vladeta Ajdacic-Gross
Wulf Rössler
Publication date
01-10-2014
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience / Issue 7/2014
Print ISSN: 0940-1334
Electronic ISSN: 1433-8491
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-014-0500-1

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