Intentional self-poisoning with medication has increased the number of suicides

A study carried out by the Laboratory of Modeling in Statistics, Geoprocessing and Epidemiology (Legepi) at Fiocruz Amazônia points to an increase of around 264% in suicide rates due to intentional self-poisoning with medication in Brazil between 2003 and 2022. The research, the results of which were published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Public Health, revealed that the unprecedented increase in these rates may have been influenced by the successive crises the country has faced in the last decade, in particular the political-economic crisis of 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic more recently.

"The aim of the study was to provide an overview of the sociodemographic characteristics and place of occurrence of deaths related to suicide by intentional self-poisoning with medication, as well as to assess the trend of these mortality rates between 2003 and 2022 and their relationship with regional and international crises", explains Fiocruz Amazônia researcher Jesem Orellana, head of Legepi and coordinator of the research, together with psychiatrist Maximiliano Ponte, researcher at Fiocruz Ceará, and Bernardo Lessa Horta, senior researcher at Fiocruz Amazônia. According to Orellana, this is an ecological time series study using official data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health's Mortality Information System, referring to individuals aged 10 or over who committed suicide by intentional self-poisoning with medication during the period in question.

"The analyses showed that, between 2003 and 2022, there was a predominance of deaths among women (55.5%), individuals aged 30-49 (47.2%), white people (53.2%), and in the Southern Region (22.8%). Additionally, 67.0% of deaths occurred in healthcare establishments and 40.4% of suicides occurred through the use of drugs or unspecified substances", Orellana said. He adds that, in comparison to the general pattern of suicide victims, a peculiar sociodemographic profile was observed among victims of intentional self-poisoning with medication, since this predominance of deaths in women, in the 30-49 age group and in white people, is not what is often observed among suicide victims in general or considering all methods of perpetrating fatal self-harm in Brazil.

Orellana explains that he is also concerned about the positive time trend or significant increase in suicide rates due to self-poisoning with medication in Brazil, which has increased since 2016 and reached a peak in 2022, "a period notoriously marked by regional and global crises", he says. "In 2015, for example, Brazil plunged into a complex social, political and economic context and in 2020 the country went through its worst health crisis of this century, the COVID-19 epidemic, which resulted not only in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths, but also in indirect lethal effects, as our study suggests, aggravating the already unfavorable scenario of suicides due to self-poisoning with medication in Brazil", says the epidemiologist.

The researcher hopes that the results of the study will help to draw up preventive policies with the purpose of supporting healthcare services in reducing this type of avoidable death. "Particularly with regard to pre-hospital and hospital care, especially in emergency services, given the high number of deaths observed in healthcare settings in Brazil", concludes Orellana.