Secular Trends in the Rates and Seasonality of Violent and Nonviolent Suicide Occurrences in Finland During 1980-95

National Finnish suicide statistics during 1980-95 were used to study secular trends in the seasonality of different types of suicides. The rate of violent suicides increased before 1990 & decreased after that. The nonviolent suicide rate increased continuously. A decreasing tendency of seasonality in nonviolent suicides & a slight decrease in violent suicides were seen within the 3 successive time periods studied. Trends mights be related to changes in the health politics in Finland. (23 refs.)