Suicide rates and socioeconomic factors in Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union: time trends between 1990 and 2008

After the collapse of the Soviet Union the various Eastern European (EE)
countries adapted in different ways to the social, political and economic changes.
The present study aims to analyse whether the factors related to social integration
and regulation are able to explain the changes in the suicide rate in EE. A
separate analysis of suicide rates, together with the undetermined intent mortality
(UD), was performed. A cross-sectional time-series design and applied a panel
data fixed-effects regression technique was used in analyses. The sample included
13 countries from the former Soviet bloc between 1990 and 2008. Dependent
variables were gender-specific age-adjusted suicide rates and suicide plus UD
rates. Independent variables included unemployment, GDP, divorce rate, birth
rate, the Gini index, female labour force participation, alcohol consumption and
general practitioners per 100,000 people.Male suicide and suicide or UD rates
had similar predictors, which suggest that changes in suicide were related to
socioeconomic disruptions experienced during the transition period. However,
male suicide rates in EE were not associated with alcohol consumption during the
study period. Even so, there might be underestimation of alcohol consumption
due to illegal alcohol and differences between methodologies of calculating
alcohol consumption. However, predictors of female suicide were related to
economic integration and suicide or UD rates with domestic integration.