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Long-Term Unemployment and Suicide: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Open accessAbstract
PURPOSE: There have been a number of reviews on the association+ between unemployment and suicide, but none have investigated how this relationship is influenced by duration of unemployment. METHOD: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted of those studies that assessed duration of unemployment as a risk factor for suicide. Studies considered as eligible for inclusion were population-based cohort or case-control designs; population-based ecological designs, or hospital based clinical cohort or case-control designs published in the year 1980 or later. RESULTS: The review identified 16 eligible studies, out of a possible 10,358 articles resulting from a search of four databases: PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Scopus and Proquest. While all 16 studies measured unemployment duration in different ways, a common finding was that longer duration of unemployment was related to greater risk of suicide and suicide attempt. A random effects meta-analysis on a subsample of six cohort studies indicated that the pooled relative risk of suicide in relation to average follow-up time after unemployment was 1.70 (95% CI 1.22 to 2.18). However, results also suggested a possible habituation effect to unemployment over time, with the greatest risk of suicide occurring within five years of unemployment compared to the employed population (RR = 2.50, 95% CI 1.83 to 3.17). Relative risk appeared to decline in studies of those unemployed between 12 and 16 years compared to those currently employed (RR = 1.21, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.33). CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that long-term unemployment is associated with greater incidence of suicide. Results of the meta-analysis suggest that risk is greatest in the first five years, and persists at a lower but elevated level up to 16 years after unemployment. These findings are limited by the paucity of data on this topic.
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“Loss of work is associated with both physical and mental health problems [20–22] in addition to economic consequences”
From Measuring the Effect of the Early assessment Team (MEET) for patients referred to outpatient mental health care: a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [22]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Milner, A., Page, A., & LaMontagne, A. D.
- Affiliations
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Milner, Allison
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2013-01-16
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e51333
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3547020
- OpenAlex
- W2085632436
- Cited by
- 407
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 36 · 2025: 49 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 43 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 6
- FWCI
- 3.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council
- National Health and Medical Research Council (546248)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Suicide and Self-Harm Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Employment and Welfare Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Workplace Health and Well-being
- Keywords
- long-term unemployment, suicide, suicide attempts, unemployment duration, suicide risk factors, habituation effect
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Risk Factors, Suicide, Suicide, Attempted, Time Factors, Unemployment
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