Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T04:54:57.020Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Suicide Past and Present—The Temporal Constancy of Under-Reporting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Traolac Brugha
Affiliation:
St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin 4, Medico-Social Research Board
Dermot Walsh
Affiliation:
Medico-Social Research Board, 73 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2

Abstract

It is known that official suicide statistics underestimate the incidence of suicide, but it is not clear whether the extent of under-reporting remains constant. An examination of coroners' records in Dublin from 1900 to 1904 and comparison with a similar series in 1964–68 suggests that the underestimation was of similar proportions in both series. It is suggested, therefore, that official suicide statistics are likely to reflect valid temporal changes in suicide and are therefore of value for the study of socio-economic influences on trends in suicide frequency.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1978 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barraclough, B. M. (1978) The different incidence of Suicide in Eire and in England and Wales. British Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 36–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, J. D. (1967) The Social Meaning of Suicide, pp 163231. Princeton.Google Scholar
McCarthy, P. D. & Walsh, D. (1966) Suicide in Dublin. British Medical Journal, i, 1393–6.Google Scholar
McCarthy, P. D. & Walsh, D. (1975) Suicide in Dublin: 1. The underreporting of suicide and the consequences for national statistics. British Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 301–8.Google Scholar
Sainsbury, P. (1973) Suicide: opinion and facts. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 66, 579–87.Google ScholarPubMed
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.