Will Suicide Rates Rise or
Decline During the Pandemic?
David Lester
There has been much speculation as to whether suicide rates will rise during the current pandemic resulting from Covid-19, and there have been some articles already looking at preliminary data on suicides in limited regions and on non-fatal suicidal behavior (attempts and ideation).
It is easy to explain why suicide rates may rise.
· The lockdown ordered by governments has resulted in increased in stress as people adapt to their new living conditions.
· Working from home eliminates many, if not most, of the social contacts people have. Working in an office or large enterprise provides a large number of social interactions.
· People often experience depression in the Winter season (seasonal affective depression), and part of this is a result of being shut-in at home during the cold and snowy weather. The pandemic has resulted in people being restricted to their homes.
· There has been tremendous economic hardship as a result of workers being laid off and businesses closing. The response of governments (through stimulus checks, banning evictions, etc.) has been helpful, but far from adequate.
· Those who worked away from home or left home for education are now at home, and interpersonal tensions may rise. Hotlines have reported an increase in the frequency of domestic violence resulting from this.
· With millions of deaths from the pandemic, there have tens of million bereaved people who have to deal with this loss, a loss occurring under terrible conditions, such as isolation from their dying loved-ones in order to prevent the spread of the virus.
It is, therefore, not surprising if the mental health of people has worsened during the pandemic and, perhaps, suicidal behavior has increased.
Why might suicide rates decline during the pandemic. One of the neglected theories in suicidology has been that of Henry and Short (1954). Their theory is complex, with both sociological and psychological components. The component most relevant to the pandemic is where to what people attach blame for their misery.
Henry and Short argued that, if people have a clear external cause to blame for their misery and unhappiness, then they will be angry and direct their aggression outwards. In contrast, if individuals have no clear external cause to blame for their misery, then they will blame themselves for their misery. Something is defective in them that accounts for their unhappiness. Then they will be more likely to become suicidal.
I have used this idea to explain the suicide of people who have been given their eyesight or hearing back after long period of blindness and deafness. When they were blind and unhappy, they knew why they were unhappy. When their vision was restored and they remained unhappy, then there was no external cause to blame for this unhappiness and, therefore, no hope for happiness.
I used the idea to explain why countries and regions of countries had higher suicide rates when the quality of life in those regions was higher. A higher quality of life in a region provides fewer external causes to blame for one’s misery.
The pandemic has provided clear external causes to blame for our unhappiness. There is the virus, an inadequate government response, and limitations to our lives created by the efforts that governments did make, such as closing restaurants, gyms and movie theaters. Therefore, people became angry, as evidenced by the protests and demonstrations around the world against government restrictions and lockdowns.
Did the suicide rate rise or decline
in the year 2020? We can predict an increase, a decrease, and no change at all.
Clearly, it will have to be a post-hoc “prediction.”
