Impossible suicide rates!

            A recent article (Jacob, et al., 2007) had a table that had suicide rates for 191 nations of the world. What is surprising about this is that rates were provided for countries such as Afghanistan (6.49 per 100,000 per year), Democratic Republic of the Congo (4.79), Somalia (7.57) and Sudan (7.12). The article gave no citation for the source of these suicide rates. I have already been sent an article to review for a scholarly journal which utilized this set of suicide rates! I e-mailed several of the authors of the paper, as well as Lancet, and received no replies. These suicide rates are most unlikely, and they should not be used for research.

Reference

Jacob, K. S., Sharan, P., Mirza, I., Garrido-Cumbrera, M., Seedat-Mari, J. j., Sreenivas, V., & Saxena, S. (2007). Mental health systems in countries. Lancet, 370, 1061-1077.