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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Elderly suicide and the 2003 SARS epidemic in Hong Kong | | Author(s) | Sau Man Sandra Chan, Fung Kum Helen Chui, Chiu Wah Linda Lam |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 21, no 2, February 2006 |
| Pages | pp 113-118 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com |
| Keywords | Suicide ; Respiratory tract diseases ; Correlation ; Hong Kong. |
| Annotation | Hong Kong was struck by the community outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. In the same year, the suicide rate for older people showed a sharp upturn from the previous downward trend. In a Poisson regression model on the suicide rates for people aged 65+ (using suicide statistics from the Hong Kong Government's Census and Statistics Department) for the years 1986-2003, 2002 served as the reference year. Suicide rates for 1986-87 were significantly higher than the reference year, with an incident rate ratio (IRR) of 1.34 to 1.61. However, rates in 1998-2001 did not differ significantly from the reference year, representing stabilisation of suicide rates for 4 years after 1997. The suicide rate for older people increased to 37.46 per 100000 population in 2003, with an IRR of 1.32 relative to 2002. Such trend is preserved when suicide rates for older women in 1993-2003 were analysed, while suicide rates for older men and younger age groups did not follow this pattern. Mechanistic failure such as breakdown of social network and limited access to healthcare might account for the findings. Older women by way of their previous readiness to utilise health and social services instituted in the past decade, are thus more susceptible to the effects of temporary suspension of these services during the SARS epidemic. Thus, the SARS epidemic was associated with increased risk of completed suicide in older women, but not in older men or the population aged under 65. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060928203 A |
| Classmark | EV: CN: 49: 7DR |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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