engleski

Diagnoses of Suicidum and Tentamen suicidi in the Registers of Patients of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's Banovina Public General Hospital in Bjelovar from 1931-1940

Suicide has been a subject of research of philosophy, ethics, religion and medicine for centuries. Attitudes towards it changed during the history, from condemnation of suicide as an unethical act to the theory of suicide as the utmost expression of a human as an individual. Croatia, with the annual suicide rate above 20 percent belongs to the high-risk countries. Suicide frequency varies from region to region, while the suicide rates for the County Bjelovarsko-bilogorska have been well above Croatia's average for decades. The aim of this retrospective study was to establish some epidemiological features of hospital patients with the diagnoses of “suicidum“ and “tentamen suicidi“ on the basis of records available in the registers of patients of General Hospital in Bjelovar in the period between 1931 and 1940. In the observed period, thirty-three people were treated in hospital for suicide attempt, seven of them dying. An equal number of men and women attempted suicide (13:13), while in the group of those who died, the ratio was more in favour of women (4:3). Suicide incidence was highest in November, followed by May and June, with the most common method for suicide being acetic acid.

suicide; suicide attempt; epidemiology; Bjelovar; history

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