Sex-specific time patterns of suicidal acts on the German railway system. An analysis of 4003 cases

Behaviour patterns preceding a railway suicide: Explorative study of German Federal Police officers' experiences

“…Finally, we want to point out that the observed suicide victims male/female ratio of 2.26:1 is comparable to male/female ratio of 2.70:1 as reported by Erazo et al [12]. The majority (64.4%) of all reported suicide victims were between 25 and 60 years old.…”

“…This training teaches specific groups of people to identify people at high risk for suicide by recognising suicidal risk factors, to assess the levels of risk, and to manage the situation appropriately [10,11]. In a railway environment, gatekeepers must also be familiar with, and alert for, particular vulnerable time windows of excess risk [12]. Until now, to the best of our knowledge, no such gatekeeper concept has been established by any railway company.…”

Suicides and other fatalities from train-person collisions on Swedish railroads: A descriptive epidemiologic analysis as a basis for systems-oriented prevention

“…An Italian study found that violent methods of suicides have a seasonal pattern with peaking rates in springtime and are lower during autumn. This pattern is not shown among soft methods of suicides (Erazo, Baumert, & Ladwig, 2004;Preti & Miotto, 1998;Schmidtke, 1994). The distribution by day of the week shows an even pattern with a slightly elevated mean frequency of suicides on weekdays.…”

“…Most of the suicides occur during the daytime (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.), which could be explained by the higher density of trains in traffic (Erazo et al, 2004;van Houwelingen & Beersma, 2001). In contrast, fatal accidents were more frequent during night-time, which could be due to reduced visibility and maybe reduced attention because of influence from alcohol, and so forth.…”

A systematic review of the literature on safety measures to prevent railway suicides and trespassing accidents

“…Local gatekeepers can be staff, police, traffic officers, security guards or ambulance personnel, who might in the course of their day-to-day work encounter suicidal individuals (Beautrais, 2007). Railway staff are trained to understand the behaviour patterns of subjects at suicide risk (Andriessen and Krysinska, 2011;Dinkel et al, 2011) and vulnerable time windows of excess risk for railway suicides (Erazo et al, 2004b). They are also trained to manage suicidal contacts (RSSB, 2011c) and to assist them by initiating relevant protocols and managing the situation until emergency services arrive (Ratnayake et al, 2007).…”