Centre for Policy on Ageing



Suicide rates and methods in different age groups — Australian data and perceptions
Author(s)	John Snowdon
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 12, no 2, Special Issue, February 1997
Pages	pp 253-258
Keywords	Suicide ; Death rate [statistics] ; Age group distribution statistics ; Teaching hospitals ; Australia.
Annotation	This study aimed to assess medical students' knowledge of the age pattern of suicides in Australia, and to note changes in the pattern of suicide in recent years using statistics provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Only 40% of the 75 students were aware that suicide in Australia is much more frequent among males, and only 2 of the 75 drew graphs similar to the true pattern. The male rate of suicide at age 20-40 years was almost 35 per 100,000 in 1989-94; above 80, it was nearly 40 per 100,000. The female suicide rate of all age groups was about 7 per 100,000. Treating depressions and preventing suicides of older people (as well as of young people) should be given priority in medical students' education.
Accession Number	CPA-970807221 A
Classmark	EV: S5: S6: V6: 7YA
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.