Browsing by Author "Cheng A.T.A."

Background Suicide rates vary widely across nations and ethnic groups. This study aims to explore potential factors contributing to inter-ethnic differences in suicide rates.Method Study subjects came from a case-control psychological autopsy study conducted in Taiwan, including 116 consecutive suicides from two aboriginal groups and Taiwanese Han; 113 of them each matched with two living controls. Gender-, age- and method-specific suicide rates, population attributable fraction (PAF) of suicide for five major risk factors, help-seeking before suicide and emergency medical aid after suicide were compared between the three ethnic groups.Results One aboriginal group (the Atayal) had significantly higher adjusted rate ratios (RR) of suicide than the other aboriginal group (the Ami) [RR 0.20, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.12-0.34] and the Han (RR 0.26, 95% CI 0.16-0.40). Such differences can be explained by higher PAFs of suicide for three major risk factors (substance dependence, PAF 47.6%, 95% CI 25.5-64.2; emotionally unstable personality disorder, PAF 52.7%, 95% CI 32.8-69.0; family history of suicidal behaviour, PAF 43.5%, 95% CI 23.2-60.2) in this group than in the other two groups. This higher suicide rate was substantially reduced from 68.2/100 000 per year to 9.1/100 000 per year, comparable with the other two groups, after stepwise removal of the effects of these three risk factors. Suicide rates by self-poisoning were also significantly higher in this group than in the other two groups.Conclusions Higher rates of specific risk factors and use of highly lethal pesticides for suicide contributed to the higher suicide rate in one ethnic group in Taiwan. These findings have implications for developing ethnicity-relevant suicide prevention strategies. ? 2010 Cambridge University Press.

Purpose To examine if widespread media reporting of the suicide of a young female singer by charcoal burning increased suicide rates, and to examine whether the suicide induced a high risk of imitation suicide by this method among the young female group. Methods Poisson time series autoregression model was applied to examine the relative risk of overall and subgroup (age, gender and method) suicides during the 2-week period after the initiation of media reporting of the celebrity suicide. Results We found a significant increase (adjusted relative risk = 1.17, p = 0.04) in suicide deaths following media reporting of the celebrity suicide. The increase in suicides was particularly significant among female and young age groups. A marked increase in suicide by charcoal burning among females (adjusted relative risk = 1.44, p < 0.0001) was further observed. Conclusions Detailed description of a specific suicide method following celebrity suicides may induce extensive modeling effect, attracting wider age/sex groups to model the method. Our finding provides further support for restraining media reporting of celebrity suicide in suicide prevention. ? Springer-Verlag 2010.

Purpose: To investigate the incidence and cumulative risk of first onset alcohol use disorder (AUD) in a 16-year follow-up among Taiwanese aboriginal populations. Methods: Participants included in this study were cohort subjects free from any AUD at phase 1 survey (n = 428 for DSM-3-R and 451 for DSM-4) of the Taiwan aboriginal study project conducted in 1986-1988. They were reassessed approximately 16 years later, with a response rate of 98.8 %. A Chinese version of the WHO schedules for clinical assessment in neuropsychiatry was employed to assess the lifetime drinking history and AUD. Results: Age-standardized annual incidence rates of AUD in all groups were 2.26 and 1.75 % according to DSM-3-R and DSM-4, respectively. The overall incidence rates of AUD were comparable to most of other studies in Caucasian populations, but the sex ratios of women to men were higher in this study (1:2-3) than in the latter (1:6). The incidence of AUD was higher with DSM-3-R than with DSM-4 criteria in this study, attributable to the exclusion of physical/psychological harm in DSM-4 alcohol abuse. The cumulative risks of DSM-4 AUD in this study were very high, being 72.2 ± 19.8 for men and 48.7 ± 8.2 for women up to the age of 65 years. Conclusions: High incidence rates and cumulative risks of AUD in Taiwanese aborigines demand effective prevention strategy. ? 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.