Elsevier

EClinicalMedicine

Volumes 29–30, December 2020, 100631
EClinicalMedicine

Research Paper
Risk factors associated with suicide clusters in Australian youth: Identifying who is at risk and the mechanisms associated with cluster membership

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100631Get rights and content
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Abstract

Background

It is unclear who is at risk of being involved in a suicide cluster and whether suicide clusters are influenced by the social transmission of suicidal behaviour, assortative relating, or a combination of both.

Methods

Suicide clusters involving two or more young people were identified from the free text of electronic police and coroners reports in Australia's National Coronial Information System in a nationwide cross-sectional study. The duration of survival among exposed cases were estimated using time-to-event methods. The casewise concordance of demographic, social and clinical characteristics and circumstances of death were examined among index and exposed cases.

Findings

We identified links between 117 young people (51 suicide clusters). 50% of young people died within 90 days of the index suicide. Individuals exposed to railway suicide had an 80% probability of dying by the same method. Those exposed to the suicide of a person aged 10–18 years had an 86% probability of being from the same age group. Young people had a 67% and 60% probability of sharing the same characteristics as the index suicide when the index suicide resided in a remote community or was of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent.

Interpretation

Suicide clusters may be associated with both the social transmission of suicidal behaviour and assortative relating. Individuals who were close to the deceased should be provided with access to postvention support, particularly within the first 90 days of exposure to an index suicide.

Funding

Australian Rotary Health, National Health and Medical Research Council.

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