Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T09:37:18.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Suicide, age and marital status

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Norman Kreitman
Norman Kreitman*
Affiliation:
MRC Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry, University Department of Psychiatry, Edinburgh.
*
1Address for correspondence: Professor N. Kreitman, MRC Unit for Epidemiological Studies in Psychiatry, University Department of Psychiatry, Royal Edinburgh Hospital, Morningside Park, Edinburgh EHIO 5HF.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

A new data set concerning suicide in relation to marital status for Scotland, 1973–83, is presented. The effects of age-standardization on marital status rates and of marital status standardization on age-specific rates are both elucidated. The difficulties of drawing conclusions from marital status rates for suicide are outlined. Nevertheless, the data suggest that the importance of the widowed state has been underestimated and that it appears that the relative risk for suicide associated with divorce has probably been decreasing among Scottish men over the study period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1988 , pp. 121 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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

Bulusu, L. & Anderson, M. (1984). Suicide 1950–82. Population Trends 35 11–17.Google Scholar
Danigelis, N. & Pope, W. (1979). Durkheim's theory of suicide as applied to the family: an empirical test. Social Forces 57, 1080–1106.Google Scholar
Dublin, L. I. (1963). Suicide. A Sociological and Statistical Study Ronald Press Company New York.Google Scholar
Durkheim, E. (1897). Suicide: A Study m Sociology, (transl. by Spaulding, J. A. and Simpson, G.). Routledge and Kegan Paul: London (1952).Google Scholar
Fox, A. & Goldblatt, P (1982). Socio-demographic differentials in mortality. Longitudinal Study Series LS. No. 1. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Fox, A., Goldblatt, P. & Adelstein, A. (1982). Selective and mortality differentials. Journal of Epidemiological and Community Health 36, 59–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibbs, J. P. (1969) Marital status and suicide in the United States: a special test of the Status Integration Theory. The American Journal of Sociology 74, 521–533.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gove, W. R. (1972). Sex, marital status and suicide. Journal of Health and Social Behaviour 13, 204–213.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacMahon, B. & Pugh, T. F. (1965). Suicide and the widowed. American Journal of Epidemiology 81, 23–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Registrar General, (1971). Registrar General Statistical Review England and Wales for 1967. Pi. Ill, Commentary, HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Stack, S. (1980). The effects of marital dissolution on suicide. Journal of Marriage and the Family 42, 83–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stack, S. (1981 a). Suicide and religion: a comparative analysis. Sociological Focus 14, 207–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stack, S. (1981 b). Divorce and suicide: a time-series analysis 1933–70. Journal of Family Illness 2, 77–90.Google Scholar
Veevers, J. E. (1973). Parenthood and suicide: an examination of a neglected variable. Social Science and Medicine 7, 134–144CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
World Health Organization, (1968). Rapport de Statisiiques Samtaires Mondiales 21 (6), WHO: Geneva.Google Scholar