"The recovery of the European economies is dependent on the mental
health of the population," Muijen said.
The upward trend in suicides began in 2008, when the euro zone entered
a recession.
In a study published last year in the journal Lancet, researchers
found that suicides rose from 2007 to 2009 in nine of the 10 countries
they studied.
The countries "facing the most severe financial reversals of fortune,"
they wrote, saw a greater rise in suicides.
The most dramatic change was in Greece, where the number of suicides
rose 19 percent.
The study, by David Stuckler at the University of Cambridge and
others, found that for every 1 percent increase in unemployment, there
is a an associated 0.8 percent increase in suicides in people under
65.
Although the rate of suicides remains lower than in other countries,
including the United States, the trend has alarmed mental health
providers because suicide was so rare in the past.
Greece, where the Orthodox church denies a funeral to people who take
their lives, had the lowest suicide rate of any Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development nation before the downturn surge
in unemployment.
Full article (long):
http://www.tampabay.com/news/world/suicide-rates-rise-in-europe-amid-job-losses-and-severe-cutbacks/1245869
The Greek Ministry of Health reported that suicides jumped 40 percent
in the first half of 2011 as compared with the same period in 2010.
In a single year, the rate increased from 2.8 suicides for every
100,000 people to at least five per 100,000.
The country's national depression and suicide hotline saw a 40 percent
increase in calls from 2010 to 2011 and reported that the majority of
people seeking help had problems including the loss of a job or an
inability to cover living costs.
And at the time the need for such a service is increasing, public
sector help has been reduced.
According to the Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health, the
cutbacks have had a severe impact on people's ability to get the help
they need:
There's a three-month wait for people seeking public mental health
services, social security has been reduced and community-based centers
for care have been shut down.
The suicide notes left in coat pockets or on desks in Greece are being
passed around on the Internet and studied like the final treatises of
revered scholars.
Friends and neighbors of Perris, who was 60 years old, say they have
read his note over and over to try to figure out whether they could
have done something differently. He blamed the "powerful of this
Earth" for his situation.
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