Tag: Registerbased research

Workplace bullying and suicidal behaviour

Workplace bullying can be considered a stressful event, but there is little knowledge about its association with suicidal behavior. The aim of this research project was to investigate whether people who had experienced workplace bullying had a higher risk of suicidal behavior than people who had not been exposed to it.

In several large Danish surveys, more than 98,000 employees had been asked about experiences of workplace bullying. These data were linked to registry data, so that researchers could examine how many of the respondents were recorded with suicidal behavior over the subsequent 10 years from 2004-2014. The findings showed that over 10% of the people who had reported experienced workplace bullying. People who had been exposed to workplace bullying had a 1.6 times higher risk of suicidal behavior when compared to those who had not experienced bullying. The study was one of the few, which have documented this association in data where it could be determined that the bullying had been reported prior to the observed suicidal behavior.

The project has received funding from the Psychiatric Research Foundation, Region of Southern Denmark.

You can find the study here: https://www.sjweh.fi/article/4034

DRISP: Annette Erlangsen

Partners:

  • Paul Maurice Conway, Institut for Psykologi, Københavns Universitet
  • Thomas Clausen, Det Nationale Forskningscenter for Arbejdsmiljø, København
  • Annie Høgh, Institut for Psykologi, Københavns Universitet
  • Elsebeth Stenager, Department of Regional Health Research, University of Southern

Suicidal behaviour after among victims of physical or sexual abuse

Abuse of children and youth is an important problem to emphasize and prevent. This project conducts a large, representative, study of victims of sexual and physical abuse.
The project has received support from the Danish Health Care Foundation.

DRISP: Annette Erlangsen & Merete Nordentoft

Partners

  • Holly Wilcox, Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA
  • Prof Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Kairi Kolves, Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, WHO Collaborating Centre in for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention at Griffith University




Suicidal behaviour among persons with ADHD

Persons diagnosed with ADHD have been found to have an increased risk of suicidal behaviour but the pathway remains to be thoroughly explored. The aim of this study was to determine whether persons with ADHD were more likely to present with suicidal behaviour, ie. suicide attempts, and deaths by suicide if they had a comorbid psychiatric disorder.

The findings of the study revealed that having a comorbid disorder was associated with a significantly higher rate of suicidal behavior; comorbid schizophrenia or substance abuse disorder were associated with the largest increase.

The project was carried out in cooperation with Prof Søren Dalgaard from Aarhus University and has received support from the Danish Lundbeck Foundation.

Published in British Journal of Psychiatry.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/suicidal-behaviour-among-persons-with-attentiondeficit-hyperactivity-disorder/6CECF48A64E415C871D233B2607114ED



DRISP: Cecilie Aaling, Annette Erlangsen, Merete Nordentoft

Partners:

  • Professor Søren Dalsgaard, DM National Centre for Register-based Research, Department of Economics and Business, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Suicide among persons in same- sex and opposite-sex marriages in Denmark and Sweden

People belonging to sexual minority groups have higher levels of suicidality than heterosexuals. However, findings regarding suicide death are sparse. Using national data from Denmark and Sweden, this study investigated whether individuals entering a same-sex marriage have higher suicide rates than those entering opposite-sex marriage.

The findings revealed that people in same-sex marriages have a 1.5-fold higher suicide rate when compared to people living in opposite-sex marries. Over the periods 1989-2002 and 2003-16, the rate of suicides among people in same-sex unions fell by 46%, compared to a decline of about 28% in the number of suicides by people in heterosexual relationships.

“Although suicide rates in the general populations of Denmark and Sweden have been decreasing in recent decades, the rate for those living in same-sex marriage declined at a steeper pace, which has not been noted previously,” the study, which followed 28,000 people in same-sex partnerships for an average of 11 years, concludes Annette Erlangsen, the lead author, suggested that along with other gay rights legislation, same-sex marriage may have reduced feelings of social stigmatisation among some homosexual people. “Being married is protective against suicide,” she told Thomson Reuters Foundation

Link to study

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/14/suicide-rates-fall-after-gay-marriage-laws-in-sweden-and-denmark



DRISP: Annette Erlangsen, Merete Nordentoft

Partners:

  • Ann Haas, PhD, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, New York, USA
  • Gunnar Andersson, PhD, Stockholm University Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
  • Sven Drefahl, PhD, Stockholm University Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
  • Charlotte Björkenstam, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, USA