A scary statistic about the death toll from suicide in Sri Lanka

From
Suicide in Sri Lanka: points to ponder
H J de Silva
Ceylon Medical Journal, 2000; 45:17-24


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Sri Lanka has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. The rate has remained relatively static over the last several years (35 to 47/100000 population) (1). It has shown a 7-fold increase since the 1 950s, and the rate of increase is most marked in young people (2). There are 14 times as many suicide attempts as suicide deaths. More people are estimated to have died from suicide in the last 15 years than in the civil war, and self-poisoning kills more people in rural Sri Lanka than ischaemic heart disease and tropical diseases taken together (3). The high number of deaths in Sri Lanka is at least partly due to the higher fatality rate of 10 to 30% compared to less than 1% in the UK in suicide attempters (4,5). Factors leading to suicide or parasuicide in developed countries would clearly differ from those in countries such as Sri Lanka, and conclusions reached from western studies may not be relevant to our country.
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