Age Patterns of Suicide: Identification and Characterization of European Clusters and Trends

The main objective of this study was to identify & characterize age patterns of suicide in Europe, both on cross-sectional & longitudinal perspectives, based on data comprising the two last decades of the 20th century. A second objective was to determine whether some analytical methods could be useful as complementary approaches to the traditional examiniation of age-specific rate curves. The authors identify & characterize four patterns. These & further findings are discussed. (9 refs)