ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Minerva Psychiatry 2022 March;63(1):61-7

DOI: 10.23736/S2724-6612.21.02173-4

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Suicide attempts in residents of Bam: 17 years after the Bam earthquake in Iran

Hadis AMIRI ¹, Maysam REZAPOUR ² ✉, Nouzar NAKHAEE ³, Mahmoud NEKOEI-MOGHADAM ⁴, Yunes JAHANI ⁵, Shandiz MOSLEHI ⁶

¹ Health in Disasters and Emergencies Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; ² Amol Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran; ³ Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute of Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; ⁴ School of Healthcare Management and Medical Information, Department of Health in Emergency and Disasters, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; ⁵ Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, Faculty Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; ⁶ School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Department of Health in Disasters and Emergencies, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

BACKGROUND: Mental health problems are one of the most important issues after earthquakes. The mental health problems of earthquakes have various dimensions, and one of them is suicide. The present study aims to evaluate the long-term impact of an earthquake (17 years) on suicide rates in people who experienced the Bam earthquake in 2003.
METHODS: Our data were collected from a historical cohort study conducted among survivors of the Bam earthquake. Multi-stage cluster sampling was used to collect data. The instrument used for the evaluation of thoughts and attempt suicide was extracted from the Iranian Mental Health Survey and to measure post-traumatic growth, PTGI_SF was used, and to measure post-traumatic stress disorder, a 4-item short questionnaire was used. Because the suicide attempt variable was dichotomous, the method used was binary logistic regression analysis, estimating two-level random intercept models using Mplus 7.4.
RESULTS: The results showed that suicide attempt was significantly associated with having exposure with earthquake (OR=4.26, 95%CI: 1.24-14.63), single participants (OR=3.15, IC1.27-7.79), and having death in relatives (OR=0.45, 95%CI: 0.24-0.81) in individual level, and a significant association with contextual PTG in community level (OR=0.77, 95%CI: 0.68-0.87).
CONCLUSIONS: The suicide attempt is a significant consequence of mental health 17 years after the Bam earthquake. These results suggest that suicide can be a long-term consequence of mental health. Targeted long-term suicide prevention programs and considering the role of post-traumatic growth need to be further developed.

KEY WORDS: Suicide; Earthquake; Posttraumatic growth, psychological; Stress disorders, post-traumatic