Seasonal and circadian rhythms in suicide in Cagliari, Italy

Altamura, Carlo; VanGastel, Ann; Pioli, Rosaria; Mannu, Piero; Maes, Michaël

doi:10.1016/s0165-0327(98)00099-8

Cited by 80 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…McCleary et al [17] reported a fall/winter peak among young adolescents under 16 years of age in the USA. Peaks in spring/ summer have also been observed in South Africa [18] and Italy [22] . We suggest three possible explanations for the adolescent shooting suicide peak in autumn.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Autumn Peak in Shooting Suicides of Children and Adolescents from Northern Finland

Lahti¹,

Räsänen²,

Karvonen³

et al. 2006

Neuropsychobiology

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Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among adolescents worldwide. Studies on the seasonal pattern of youth suicides are rare and the results are very contradictory and heterogeneous. Generally, suicide methods affect the pattern of suicide seasonality. Shooting is the most common suicide method among Finnish adolescents. We investigated whether shooting suicides of victims aged less than 18 years are correlated with a specific period of the year. Also, the seasonal pattern of shooting suicides in adolescents was compared with that of adult victims. Our data comprised 42 adolescent suicide victims and, for comparison, 1,926 adult suicide victims over the years 1988 to 2004 from Northern Finland.Of these, 59.5% (n = 25) of the adolescents and 28.8% (n = 554) of the adults had committed suicide by shooting.We observed that shooting suicides among the under-aged showed a significant peak in autumn (ratio 2.70, 95% CI: 1.97–3.42), while those of adult victims peaked in spring (ratio 1.19, 95% CI: 1.05–1.35). The monthly pattern of suicides correlated significantly with the mean duration of daily sunshine hours (trailing by 3 months) in the under-aged (r = 0.67, p = 0.016), but not in the adults (r = 0.06, p = 0.854). The role of firearm availability, psychosocial factors such as start of the school year, and some biological factors are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Autumn Peak in Shooting Suicides of Children and Adolescents from Northern Finland

Lahti¹,

Räsänen²,

Karvonen³

et al. 2006

Neuropsychobiology

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“…Photoperiod, changes in photoperiod, and light intensity have been proposed as possible environmental triggers (Goodwin and Jamison, 1990). However, upon careful scrutiny, the peak times of suicide occurrence (summarized in Altamura et al, 1999) do not match the peak of photoperiod (centered on the Summer Solstice in late June) or the time when photoperiodic changes are at their greatest (centered on the Spring equinox in March; Barker et al, 1994;Linkowski et al, 1992;Souetre et al, 1987;Tietjen & Kripke, 1994;Terao et al, 2002). Based on the temporal coincidence between seasonal peaks in tree pollen and peaks of suicide, we have hypothesize that seasonality of suicide could be driven by a combination of environmental triggers and vulnerability, i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mood-worsening with high-pollen-counts and seasonality: A preliminary report

Guzmán¹,

Tonelli²,

Roberts³

et al. 2007

Journal of Affective Disorders

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Background: Because aeroallergens produce inflammation in the respiratory airways, and inflammation triggers depression in vulnerable individuals, we hypothesized that mood sensitivity to pollen, the most seasonal aeroallergen, will be associated with a greater seasonality of mood. Since pollen is absent during winter, we specifically predicted that mood sensitivity to tree pollen will predict non-winter SAD but not winter SAD.

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“…Suicides are not evenly distributed over time and most studies have found that suicide rates peak during spring and summer (Yip et al 1998;Alatamura et al 1999). A more recent study in Oulu, northern Finland, reported a bimodal distribution of suicides throughout the year, peaking in spring and autumn (Partonen et al 2004), as shown in Fig.…”

Section: Studies Concerning Mental Illness and Suicide Since 1990mentioning

confidence: 91%

Solar and geomagnetic activity, extremely low frequency magnetic and electric fields and human health at the Earth’s surface

2006

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The possibility that conditions on the Sun and in the Earth's magnetosphere can affect human health at the Earth's surface has been debated for many decades. This work reviews the research undertaken in the field of heliobiology, focusing on the effect of variations of geomagnetic activity on human cardiovascular health. Data from previous research are analysed for their statistical significance, resulting in support for some studies and the undermining of others. Three conclusions are that geomagnetic effects are more pronounced at higher magnetic latitudes, that extremely high as well as extremely low values of geomagnetic activity seem to have adverse health effects and that a subset of the population (10-15%) is predisposed to adverse health due to geomagnetic variations. The reported health effects of anthropogenic sources of electric and magnetic fields are also briefly discussed, as research performed in this area could help to explain the results from studies into natural electric and magnetic field interactions with the human

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Seasonal and circadian rhythms in suicide in Cagliari, Italy

Cited by 80 publications

References 44 publications

Autumn Peak in Shooting Suicides of Children and Adolescents from Northern Finland

Autumn Peak in Shooting Suicides of Children and Adolescents from Northern Finland

Mood-worsening with high-pollen-counts and seasonality: A preliminary report

Solar and geomagnetic activity, extremely low frequency magnetic and electric fields and human health at the Earth’s surface

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