Suicide among young people in selected Brazilian State capitals

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role of environmental factors external to the health care system in the occurrence of perinatal deaths in maternity hospitals belonging to the local health system in a city in Greater Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro in 1994. Elements from the political and administrative context that contribute to an understanding of the relationship between failures in health care and structural deficiencies in these maternity hospitals were divided into four groups of variables: distribution of resources, spatial and temporal factors, organizational and managerial features, and action by interest groups. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. The study concluded that poor performance in four groups of variables may have contributed to perinatal mortality: distribution of resources was insufficient to provide quality in health care, especially in private maternity hospitals; there was no formal or informal regional or hierarchical organization of obstetric care in the city; Ministry of Health guidelines were ignored in all four maternity hospitals, while in three of the hospitals there were no admissions procedures and delivery and fetal follow-up listed in their own rules; and the level of actual participation was low.

Suicide attempts by exogenous intoxication among female adolescents treated at a reference hospital in the city of Recife-PE, Brazil

“…The majority adolescents were 15 years of age, which corroborates both national and international studies reporting an increase in the occurrence of suicide attempts among young people between 15 and 22 years of age (22,16,13,23,1,24,21) . In this period, adolescents are in the post-puberty phase, in which their adult bodies are acquiring more defined forms.…”

“…In a study carried out on the main capital cities of Brazil, the cities of Porto Alegre, Curitiba and Belém had the highest suicide rates among young people and gender differences were detected. One study reports an increase in the suicide rate in the state of Pernambuco between 1990 and 1995, with a slight decline in 1998; the same study found that males committed suicide more, whereas females had a greater number of suicide attempts (13) . The preponderance of suicide attempts among female youths does not imply that the same process occurs among males.…”

Violência autoinfligida e anos potenciais de vida perdidos em Minas Gerais, Brasil

“…A cidade de Belo Horizonte apresentou taxa de mortalidade de 4,3 no ano de 1979 e 6,8/ 100.000 habitantes em 1995; portanto, um crescimento de 58,1% no período estudado. 32 Atualmente, os principais modelos explicativos para a violência autoinfligida retratam três dimensões: o aspecto sociológico, que o trata no contexto histórico e cultural; o aspecto psicológi-co que o considera como resultado de conflitos internos dos indivíduos; e o aspecto nosológico, em que esse problema é visto como enfermidade, havendo convergência nessas dimensões nos episódios identificados. 9,19,33 Não há como negar a complexidade da violência autoinfligida e as dificuldades sociais para a abordagem explícita dessa temática, em decorrência da estigmatização dos sujeitos e familiares envolvidos nesse processo, uma vez que, de um modo geral, as pessoas tendem a negar essa atitude definida pelo contra-fluxo natural da vida.…”

Adolescência e saúde mental: revisão de artigos brasileiros publicados em periódicos nacionais

“…A metodologia quantitativa predominou nos delineamentos (54,1%), sendo somente três trabalhos com abordagem qualitativa e 13 artigos teóricos 4,5,6 . O delineamento quantitativo caracterizou-se por estudos descritivos correlacionais 7,8,9 e estudos epidemiológicos 10,11,12,13,14 .…”