Suicide mortality in England and Wales is
highest in skilled trades and elementary occupations, which include
agricultural workers, construction workers, and plant and machine
operators, a new
study has found.
A higher proportion of deaths due to suicide
was also recorded among health professionals compared to the
population as a whole.
Published in the July 2008 issue of the
British Journal of Psychiatry, the study used mortality
data collected by the Office for National Statistics to examine
suicide by occupation between 2001 and 2005.
Among men, skilled trades and elementary
occupations have the highest suicide mortality, with construction
trades, agricultural trades, elementary construction and elementary
process plant occupations contributing most to this result. This is
consistent with previous Social Class studies of suicide, which
show suicide risk to be higher in manual workers. Among women,
those with any occupation have lower suicide mortality than those
who do not have an occupation, suggesting a protective effect of
employment.
A higher proportion of deaths in 2001-2005
amongst men and women working as health professionals were due to
suicide than was the case for the population as a whole. More
detailed analysis showed that the main contributors to this were
male dental practitioners, medical practitioners of both genders
and female veterinarians. Nurses of both genders also had
significantly high suicide mortality compared with other
causes.
However, male health professionals have low
mortality overall when compared with the male population of England
and Wales. This means that, even with a higher proportion of their
deaths being suicide, their suicide rate is lower than the national
average. This is not true for female health professionals, who also
have high suicide mortality compared with the general population of
women.
Agricultural trades, including farmers, had
high suicide mortality, both compared with other causes of death
and compared with the general population.
The researchers compared their 2001-2005
findings to earlier studies in 1982-1987 and 1991-1996. Although it
was difficult to make direct comparisons because the classification
of occupations has changed, and because each analysis only looks at
mortality among occupational groups relative the whole population
at that time, farmers and medical practitioners were represented in
the occupations with the highest suicide mortality in all three
decades. However, male medical practitioners, for the first time,
now have lower suicide mortality than the general population of
men, when in previous years their mortality had been higher.
Many factors influence the pathway to suicide,
including life events, availability of social supports, illness,
knowledge of and access to healthcare, knowledge of and access to
means of suicide, and the behaviour of the media. Both health
professionals and agricultural occupations have increased knowledge
of and access to methods of suicide, which perhaps explains their
high suicide mortality compared with other causes of death.
Although there have been a number of national
suicide prevention strategies, the study clearly shows that excess
mortality from suicide still remains in some occupational groups.
The researchers therefore concluded that there is further potential
for targeted suicide prevention strategies to reduce suicide rates
in high-risk occupations.