Suicide mortality and coronavirus disease 2019—a perfect storm?
Abstract
Suicide rates have been rising in the US over the last 2 decades.The latest data available (2018) show the highest age-adjusted suicide rate in the US since 1941. 1 It is within this context that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) struck the US.Concerning disease models have led to historic and unprecedented public health actions to curb the spread of the virus.Remarkable social distancing interventions have been implemented to fundamentally reduce human contact.While these steps are expected to reduce the rate of new infections, the potential for adverse outcomes on suicide risk is high.Actions could be taken to mitigate potential unintended consequences on suicide prevention efforts, which also represent a national public health priority.
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Country-specific data has revealed high levels of stress, depression and anxiety symptoms, increased loneliness and suicidal ideation during the pandemic.
“Country specific data has revealed high levels of stress, depression and anxiety symptoms, increased loneliness and suicidal ideation.(Killgore et al., 2020a; Reger et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020; Rossell et al., 2020; Serafini et al., 2020)”
From Younger people are more vulnerable to stress, anxiety and depression during COVID-19 pandemic: a global cross-sectional survey (2021) · cites this paper as Reger et al., 2020
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- Authors
- Reger, M. A., Stanley, I. H., & Joiner, T. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Washington (US)
- Florida State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Reger, Mark A.
- Venue
- JAMA Psychiatry
- Publisher
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Published
- 2020-11-01
- Volume
- 77
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1093
- ISSN
- 2168-622X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3016108072
- Semantic Scholar
- 06b793ba98018e46ac1284676ff0a83fea0b09db
- Cited by
- 1,026
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 20 · 2025: 41 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 136 · 2022: 219 · 2021: 321 · 2020: 223 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 89.80
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- JAMA Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Keywords
- suicide mortality, COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, suicide prevention, mental health during pandemic
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Suicide Prevention, Health Services Accessibility, Humans, Suicide, United States, Pandemics
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