Covid-19: suicides fell during the 2020 confinements

Published on: 09/06/2022 – 08:41 The number of suicides fell during the two confinements of 2020, the National Suicide Observatory (ONS) indicated on Tuesday, also reporting an “increase in anxiety-depressive disorders and sleep difficulties” at the start of the pandemic. Contrary to what was feared, the pandemic did not lead to “an immediate increase in suicidal behavior”, revealed on Tuesday, September 6, the National Suicide Observatory (ONS) in a report on the impact of the crisis of the Covid-19. The pandemic has had “contrasting effects” on the French population, estimates the observatory of the Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES) – the statistics service of the health ministries and social – evoking a general drop in suicides during the 2020 confinements and a differentiated evolution of suicidal gestures according to the populations. Suicidal gestures even “decreased at the start of the pandemic despite an increase in anxiety-depressive disorders and difficulties sleep”, writes the organization. Deaths by suicide in the general population thus fell by 20% and 8% during the two confinements of 2020 compared to previous years, and hospitalizations in short- stay for self-inflicted injuries by 10% in 2020 compared to the 2017-2019 period, he estimates. These figures, which still need to be consolidated, correspond to data “collected in other countries of similar economic level” , and suggest that the confinements “have been able to punctually reduce the risk of suicide” thanks to the “feeling of sharing a collective ordeal” or even because of “increased surveillance by relatives”. is not continued outside confinement, because “the overall number of deaths by suicide, their distribution according to age or place of death” between the beginning of January 2020 and the end of March 2021 “do not appear to have been affected by the pandemic”, continues ONS. Another lesson from the report: since the end of 2020, hospitalizations for self-inflicted injuries have increased significantly for “adolescent girls and young women, in contrast to the rest of the population”, points out the observatory. These latter have been affected “by the first confinement, with an increase in depressive syndromes, which did not return to pre-pandemic levels once the most acute phases had passed”, he underlines, referring to the “role of emphasis” pre-existing psychological vulnerabilities played by Covid-19 in young people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. The DREES calls for a cautious interpretation of these figures, however, due to possible “rebound effects” and the “general downward trend in suicidal behavior, observable since the 1980s”. With AFP