Year : 2004, Volume : 2, Issue : 2
First page : ( 1) Last page : ( 1)
Print ISSN : 0973-1970. Online ISSN : 0974-4487.

A retrospective review of 1018 suicide cases from the capital city of South Africa for the period 1997 - 2000

Scribante L.¹, Blumenthal R.¹, Saayman G.¹, Roos JL.¹

¹Am J Forensic Med Pathol 2004; 25(1):52

Abstract

There is a paucity of published data on suicide research in South Africa. According to Burrows et al, suicide accounted for 9.4% of deaths recorded on the National Non-Natural Mortality Surveillance in 2000 for 15 large, urban mortuaries. It would seem from this that South Africa has a very high prevalence of suicide cases. Studies have shown that more suicide victims are male and that male suicide victims are more likely to use violent suicidal methods. It is further commonly believed that there is a seasonal variation in the incidence of suicide. No published studies pertaining to South African populations could be found in the scientific literature. Other factors that are commonly assessed in reviewing suicide in a community are gender, age, and alcohol use prior to the attempt. This study aims to shed some light on successful suicide cases in the Pretoria region. The time frame of the study starts 3 years after the first open, democratic elections held in South Africa. This has been is a time of great sociodemographic and political change. Pretoria is an urban, cosmopolitan city in Gauteng Province (situated approximately 50 km fom Johannesburg) with a population of 1,012,145 people, according to the 1996 South African census. The population breakdown according to race was as follows: 469,620 blacks, 53,645 asians and coloreds, 479,301 whites. The male:female ratio for all groups was 1:1. The Pretoria Medico - Legal Laboratory (MLL) is responsible for the medicolegal investigation and autopsies of all nonnatural deaths in the greater Pretoria region. The MLL conducts 2500 autopsies on average per annum.

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