11/08/2008
Suicide mortality in England and Wales is highest in skilled trades and elementary occupations, which include agricultural workers, construction workers, and plant and machine operators, a new study has found. A higher proportion of deaths due to suicide was also recorded among health professionals compared to the population as a whole.

Published in the July 2008 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, the study used mortality data collected by the Office for National Statistics to examine suicide by occupation between 2001 and 2005. Among men, skilled trades and elementary occupations have the highest suicide mortality, with construction trades, agricultural trades, elementary construction and elementary process plant occupations contributing most to this result. This is consistent with previous Social Class studies of suicide, which show suicide risk to be higher in manual workers. Among women, those with any occupation have lower suicide mortality than those who do not have an occupation, suggesting a protective effect of employment.

A higher proportion of deaths in 2001-2005 amongst men and women working as health professionals were due to suicide than was the case for the population as a whole. More detailed analysis showed that the main contributors to this were male dental practitioners, medical practitioners of both genders and female veterinarians. Nurses of both genders also had significantly high suicide mortality compared with other causes.

However, male health professionals have low mortality overall when compared with the male population of England and Wales. This means that, even with a higher proportion of their deaths being suicide, their suicide rate is lower than the national average. This is not true for female health professionals, who also have high suicide mortality compared with the general population of women.

Agricultural trades, including farmers, had high suicide mortality, both compared with other causes of death and compared with the general population.

The researchers compared their 2001-2005 findings to earlier studies in 1982-1987 and 1991-1996. Although it was difficult to make direct comparisons because the classification of occupations has changed, and because each analysis only looks at mortality among occupational groups relative the whole population at that time, farmers and medical practitioners were represented in the occupations with the highest suicide mortality in all three decades. However, male medical practitioners, for the first time, now have lower suicide mortality than the general population of men, when in previous years their mortality had been higher.

Many factors influence the pathway to suicide, including life events, availability of social supports, illness, knowledge of and access to healthcare, knowledge of and access to means of suicide, and the behaviour of the media. Both health professionals and agricultural occupations have increased knowledge of and access to methods of suicide, which perhaps explains their high suicide mortality compared with other causes of death.

Reference: Meltzer H, Griffiths C, Brock A, Rooney C and Jenkins R (2008) Patterns of suicide by occupation in England and Wales: 2001-2005. British Journal of Psychiatry, 193, 73-76