Suicide mortality in people aged 60 and over in Brazilian municipalities between 1996 and 2007

The scope of this article was to assess the nationwide scale of suicides among the elderly. An overview of suicides in Brazilian municipalities was conducted to identify municipalities with the highest incidence of suicide. Data from the Mortality Information System (SIM/MS) were used for the period from 1996 to 2007, using the events with codes X60 through X84 and Y87.0 of the 10th review of the International Classification of Diseases (CID-10). The rates were standardized according to the criteria of the WHO. It was discovered that 3,039 Brazilian municipalities have records of suicide cases of people aged 60 and more in at least one of the triennia analyzed (54.6% of all the municipalities). A total of 29.3% of those municipalities were in the Southern Region, 29.6% in the Southeast and 27.5% in the Northeast. The State of Rio Grande do Sul has the highest percentage of municipalities with suicide cases in the four triennia (27.3%), followed by the States of São Paulo (17.4%) and Santa Catarina (9.1%). Between the first and the final triennium, it was observed that there was a reduction in 32 of the 51 municipalities with higher rates. The mean ratio of male/female deaths was 2.8 male deaths for every female death. The main method used is hanging, strangulation and suffocation among both men (58.2%) and women (49.8%).