Ecuador: Results of 15 Year Study regarding suicide in Ecuador

ECUADOR RANKS ABOVE REGIONAL AVERAGE FOR INDIVIDUALS COMMITTING SUICIDE

Data about suicide is still scarce in Latin America, especially in smaller countries like Ecuador. In the last 20 years just very few reports have partially described this phenomenon in the country

The disease burden of suicide in Ecuador, a 15 years’ geodemographic cross-sectional study (2001–2015)

Esteban Ortiz-PradoEmail authorView ORCID ID profile, Katherine Simbaña, Lenin Gómez, Aquiles R. Henriquez-Trujillo, Fernando Cornejo-Leon, Eduardo Vasconez, Diana Castillo and Ginés Viscor

Abstract
Background

Suicide affects people from different backgrounds, ethnical groups, socio-economic status and geographical locations. In Latin America, suicide reports are scarce, specially in Andean countries. In Ecuador, very few reports have partially described this phenomenon, nonetheless, estimation of the burden of disease (BoD) hasnever been reported in the country.

Results

In the last 15 years, 13,024 suicides were officially reported. Men were 3 times more likely than women to die by suicide. The overall age-adjusted suicide ratio in Ecuador corresponds to 7.1 per 100,000 per year. The sex-specific rates were 5.3 in women and 13.2 in men. The primary mean of suicide was hanging X70 (51.1%), followed by self-poisoning X68-X69 (35.2%) and firearms X72-X74 (7.6%). Provinces located at higher altitude reported higher rates than those located at sea level (9 per 100,000 vs 4.5 per 100.000). The total economic loss due to suicide was estimated to be $852.6 million during the 15 years’ analysis.
Conclusions

This is the first geodemographic study exploring the complete burden of suicide in Ecuador and one of the very few in Latin-America. In the last 15 years of available data, Ecuador ranks above the regional average with an adjusted suicide rate of 7.1 per 100,000 inhabitants. An important finding is that Suicide affects rather younger populations, adding more than 10,000 years of premature years of life lost (YYL) between 2001 and 2015, becoming the first and fourth leading cause of death among adolescent women and men respectively.

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Suicide affects people from different backgrounds, socioeconomic status and educational attainment. The mean of suicide changed over time showing that gun and pesticides related deaths decreased significantly since 2001, while hanging and suffocation increased in more than 50%. Read Report