Psychiatric History Modifies the Gender Ratio of Suicide: an East and West Comparison

This study investigated the effect of gender in psychiatric & non-psychiatric populations to examine how psychiatric history may have modulated the effect of gender in suicide cases in 2000 in Hong Kong & Victoria, Australia. Log-linear model was used to test interactions. Gender difference in suicide was narrower in victims with psychiatric history than those without in both communities. The impact of cultural- & gender-specific factors was most apparent in sucide cases with no prior psychiatric history in Victoria. Results show the gender-psychiatric history-location interaction was statistically significant. (19 refs.) JA