Who uses firearms as a means of suicide? A population study exploring firearm accessibility and method choice

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Background

The 1996 Australian National Firearms Agreement introduced strict access limitations. However, reports on the effectiveness of the new legislation are conflicting. This study, accessing all cases of suicide 1997-2004, explores factors which may impact on the choice of firearms as a suicide method, including current licence possession and previous history of legal access.

Methods

Detailed information on all Queensland suicides (1997-2004) was obtained from the Queensland Suicide Register, with additional details of firearm licence history accessed from the Firearm Registry (Queensland Police Service). Cases were compared against licence history and method choice (firearms or other method). Odds ratios (OR) assessed the risk of firearms suicide and suicide by any method against licence history. A logistic regression was undertaken identifying factors significant in those most likely to use firearms in suicide.

Results

The rate of suicide using firearms in those with a current license (10.92 per 100,000) far exceeded the rate in those with no license history (1.03 per 100,000). Those with a license history had a far higher rate of suicide (30.41 per 100,000) compared to that of all suicides (15.39 per 100,000). Additionally, a history of firearms licence (current or present) was found to more than double the risk of suicide by any means (OR = 2.09, P < 0.001). The group with the highest risk of selecting firearms to suicide were older males from rural locations.

Conclusion

Accessibility and familiarity with firearms represent critical elements in determining the choice of method. Further licensing restrictions and the implementation of more stringent secure storage requirements are likely to reduce the overall familiarity with firearms in the community and contribute to reductions in rates of suicide.

Related collections

Most cited references 52

Record: found
Abstract: found
Book: not found

Essential Medical Statistics

Betty R. Kirkwood, Jonathan Sterne (2003)

Blackwell Publishing is delighted to announce that this book has been Highly Commended in the 2004 BMA Medical Book Competition. Here is the judges' summary of this book:"This is a technical book on a technical subject but presented in a delightful way. There are many books on statistics for doctors but there are few that are excellent and this is certainly one of them. Statistics is not an easy subject to teach or write about. The authors have succeeded in producing a book that is as good as it can get. For the keen student who does not want a book for mathematicians, this is an excellent first book on medical statistics."Essential Medical Statistics is a classic amongst medical statisticians. An introductory textbook, it presents statistics with a clarity and logic that demystifies the subject, while providing a comprehensive coverage of advanced as well as basic methods.The second edition of Essential Medical Statistics has been comprehensively revised and updated to include modern statistical methods and modern approaches to statistical analysis, while retaining the approachable and non-mathematical style of the first edition. The book now includes full coverage of the most commonly used regression models, multiple linear regression, logistic regression, Poisson regression and Cox regression, as well as a chapter on general issues in regression modelling. In addition, new chapters introduce more advanced topics such as meta-analysis, likelihood, bootstrapping and robust standard errors, and analysis of clustered data.Aimed at students of medical statistics, medical researchers, public health practitioners and practising clinicians using statistics in their daily work, the book is designed as both a teaching and a reference text. The format of the book is clear with highlighted formulae and worked examples, so that all concepts are presented in a simple, practical and easy-to-understand way. The second edition enhances the emphasis on choice of appropriate methods with new chapters on strategies for analysis and measures of association and impact.Essential Medical Statistics is supported by a web site at www.blackwellpublishing.com/essentialmedstats. This useful online resource provides statistical datasets to download, as well as sample chapters and future updates.

0 comments Cited 318 times – based on 0 reviews

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership.

Arthur Kellermann, Frederick Rivara, Grant R. Somes … (1992)

It has been suggested that limiting access to firearms could prevent many suicides, but this belief is controversial. To assess the strength of the association between the availability of firearms and suicide, we studied all suicides that took place in the homes of victims in Shelby County, Tennessee, and King County, Washington, over a 32-month period. For each suicide victim (case subject), we obtained data from police or the medical examiner and interviewed a proxy. Their answers were compared with those of control subjects from the same neighborhood, matched with the victim according to sex, race, and age range. Crude and adjusted odds ratios were calculated with matched-pairs methods. During the study period, 803 suicides occurred in the two counties, 565 of which (70 percent) took place in the home of the victim. Fifty-eight percent (326) of these suicides were committed with a firearm. After excluding 11 case subjects for various reasons, we were able to interview 80 percent (442) of the proxies for the case subjects. Matching controls were identified for 99 percent of these subjects, producing 438 matched pairs. Univariate analyses revealed that the case subjects were more likely than the controls to have lived alone, taken prescribed psychotropic medication, been arrested, abused drugs or alcohol, or not graduated from high school. After we controlled for these characteristics through conditional logistic regression, the presence of one or more guns in the home was found to be associated with an increased risk of suicide (adjusted odds ratio, 4.8; 95 percent confidence interval, 2.7 to 8.5). Ready availability of firearms is associated with an increased risk of suicide in the home. Owners of firearms should weigh their reasons for keeping a gun in the home against the possibility that it might someday be used in a suicide.

0 comments Cited 134 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Household firearm ownership and rates of suicide across the 50 United States.

Ethan Lippmann, David Hemenway, Deborah Azrael … (2007)

The current investigation explores the association between rates of household firearm ownership and suicide across the 50 states. Prior ecologic research on the relationship between firearm prevalence and suicide has been criticized for using problematic proxy-based, rather than survey-based, estimates of firearm prevalence and for failing to control for potential psychological risk factors for suicide. We address these two criticisms by using recently available state-level survey-based estimates of household firearm ownership, serious mental illness, and alcohol/illicit substance use and dependence. Negative binomial regression was used to assess the relationship between household firearm ownership rates and rates of firearm, nonfirearm, and overall suicide for both sexes and for four age groups. Analyses controlled for rates of poverty, urbanization, unemployment, mental illness, and drug and alcohol dependence and abuse. US residents of all ages and both sexes are more likely to die from suicide when they live in areas where more households contain firearms. A positive and significant association exists between levels of household firearm ownership and rates of firearm and overall suicide; rates of nonfirearm suicide were not associated with levels of household firearm ownership. Household firearm ownership levels are strongly associated with higher rates of suicide, consistent with the hypothesis that the availability of lethal means increases the rate of completed suicide.

0 comments Cited 83 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Med

Title: BMC Medicine

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1741-7015

Publication date Collection: 2009

Publication date (Electronic): 24 September 2009

Volume: 7

Page: 52

Affiliations

[1 ]Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, National Centre of Excellence in Suicide Prevention, WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

Article

Publisher ID: 1741-7015-7-52

DOI: 10.1186/1741-7015-7-52

PMC ID: 2761417

PubMed ID: 19778414

SO-VID: d6add900-a512-4917-8799-558237086725

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Who uses firearms as a means of suicide? A population study exploring firearm accessibility and method choice

Read this article at

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Related collections

Karger: Ophthalmology

Most cited references 52

Essential Medical Statistics

Suicide in the home in relation to gun ownership.

Household firearm ownership and rates of suicide across the 50 United States.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 402

Cited by 9

Most referenced authors 529