Psychological autopsy study of gender-specific psychological characteristics of rural young suicides

Objective:To compare the psychological characteristics between rural young male and female suicides,and compare the influences of the psychological factors on suicide between rural young men and women.Methods:Sixteen counties or county-level cities in Shandong,Liaoning and Hunan provinces were randomly selected.Totally 392 suicides aged 15~34 years old were studied by using psychological autopsy method.Hierarchical Linear and Nonlinear Modeling(HLM) was applied to calculate the OR values of psychological factors by using 392 suicides and 416 controls with the same age range which were randomly selected from the 16 selected sites.Results:Rural young male suicides had more severe hopelessness,depression,and trait anxiety(Ps0.05).There was no significant gender difference in neither impulsivity nor coping skills.The comparison of odds ratio values of the psychological factors showed that coping abilities of problem solving and seeking compensation significantly reduced suicide risks among rural young women(P0.05).However,two kinds of negative coping styles cognitive evading and emotions release significantly increased suicide risks among rural young men(P0.05).Conclusion:Comparing to rural young female suicides,male suicides have higher scores of the psychological risk factors for completed suicide,but there is no significant gender difference of the influences of most psychological risk factors on completed suicide.