Suicide Rates in Hungary do not Correlate Negatively With Reported Rates of Depression & With the Number of General Practitioners

The author re-examined a theory which attempts to explain striking regional differences in Hungarian suicide rates by arguing that in countries with a high suicide rate the number of diagnosed depression cases is low & vice versa, thus indicating that the number of general practitioners is lower in regions with high suicide rates. The current author finds no evidence to support this theory & argues that explanation of the high Hungarian suicide rates & regional differences requires a much more complex approach. (17 refs)