Discussion of the features of suicide trends in 1994–1995 and 2019–2020: The need for different contents in suicide prevention measures for both periods in Japan from the viewpoint of the present

•The COVID-19 pandemic has continued around the world.•In this study, we compared the characteristics of suicide trends before and after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (1994–1995), and during the current COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2020) 25 years later.•The epidemiological characteristics of suicide differed during both periods of this study.•The fields that can promptly identify detailed trends in suicides in Japan and that can apprise society of those findings are the police, specialists in legal medicine, and the medical examiner. Japan is a country that is prone to natural disasters. This study compared the characteristics of suicide trends before and after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, and during the current COVID-19 pandemic 25 years later. In the present study, we examined the annual number of suicides, the number of suicides by age group, and the reason for suicide during the period associated with the earthquake (1994–1995) and the period associated with the pandemic (2019–2020). This study used statistical analyses to compare the two periods. Our findings suggest that research needs to be conducted from the perspective of legal medicine and social medicine to devise current and future measures to prevent suicides. During the first period, suicides increased in 1995 compared to 1994. Suicide due to economic and life problems increased significantly. During the second period, suicides increased in 2020 compared to 2019. Suicides by males decreased significantly and those by females increased significantly; suicides by individuals aged 19 or under and by those aged 20–29 increased significantly, while suicides by individuals aged 60–69 decreased significantly; and suicides due to “other problems” increased significantly, while suicides due to economic and life problems decreased significantly. Ongoing studies of detailed trends in suicides due to the effects of COVID-19 need to be conducted in the future, and it is important to determine suicide risk due to the effects of COVID-19. Legal medicine and social medicine are fields that conduct such studies and that can offer science-based responses to these trends.