Friday, May 25, 2012

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.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir,

How are you? I am Anitha.B, pursuing my M.Phil from Jain University,India. I am conducting research in the area of Fear of Death or Death Anxiety. My research topic is " The Effect of Religion and Death Anxiety".

While looking for books to read on this topic, I came across your work on Fear of death. As I am very keen in pursuing my research in this field, I would request your guidance and thoughts on the same. Please leave your thoughts and comments on my email id-anitha089@gmail.com. Your work in the field is unparalleled. Awaiting your kind reply.

Thank you
Regards
Anitha

1:08 AM

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