Suicide in south Tyrol

Abstract

Preface

South Tyrol is a province of Italy bordering on Austria with 500.000 inhabitants, comprising three different ethnic- linguistic groups (German, Italian and Ladin) whose suicide rate is two times higher than the Italian average.

Goal of the research: The following ecological research tries analyse the existence of some risk factors that differentiate South Tyrol from the rest of Italy explaining the greater number of suicides.

Method:

Between 1999 and 2006 almost 300 suicide cases were gathered and analysed with the descriptive interference method. The records have been elaborated considering different variables.

Results:

Among the results two records are of particular interest:

1. 1. A significantly higher risk of suicide in the German speaking population compared to the Italian one (the records of the Ladin speaking population are not significant).

2. 2. There is a higher suicidal tendency in the rural areas compared to the urban ones.

Conclusions:

Such as in all epidemiological descriptive surveys there is no causal explanation for the instance that the German speaking group is characterized by a suicide risk which is 1,3 times higher than the Italian speaking group. It remains unanswered if the high number of suicide in the German speaking population is due to a selection variable; for example that the areas populated by the latter (mainly rural areas) present another variable (high alcoholism, different familiar cohesion, etc.) than the mother language. In this case the affiliation to a linguistic group would be considered a confusing variable among other causal factors.