Pathomorphosis of suicidal behavior on the example of choosing methods of suicide

In foreign publications, there has appeared information about an increase in the number of suicides caused by a jump from a height. The aim of the study is to compare the frequency of committing suicides by jumping from a height and self-hanging, as the most common methods of suicide, based on the study of mass media information on cases of suicide. Material and methods. For the period from 2001 to 2021 there have been analyzed the time series of suicides due to hanging – 220 episodes (165 committed by men, 55 committed by women) and 123 episodes of jumping from a height (69 committed by men, 54 committed by women). 16.1% of the remaining cases account for such methods as: suicide with a firearm – 21 cases, railway suicide – 13, infliction of wounds with a stabbing object – 8, poisoning – 8, self-immolation – 6, opening of the veins – 4, drowning – 2, single and undescribed in the media methods – 4. Results. The mean age of men who committed suicide by hanging was 37.6±16.4, the mean age of women – 32.7±14.6. The mean age of men who committed suicide by jumping from a height was 33.7±16.6 (2, p=0.0997, in relation to the group of men who committed suicide by hanging), women – 33.0±19.6 (2, p=0.9279, relative to the group of women who committed suicide by hanging). In the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, no differences in time series were found. A 13-fold increase in the number of hangings occurred in the middle of the observed period, there were four times more men than women. A fourfold increase compared to the average over the observation period, the increase in the number of high jumps occurred from 2019 to 2021, 2.4 times more men than women. The time series of suicide rates for men and women by the method of jumping from a height in the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test differ (p< 0.05). It was concluded that: 1) the classification of suicidal behavior by choosing the method of committing suicide reveals the pathomorphism of this phenomenon, which is realized over long (at least 20 years) time intervals, this is an indirect evidence of the biological multifactorial nature of this phenomenon; 2) monitoring of suicide attempts and completed suicides allows building a strategy for the timely correction of suicidal behavior and prevention of its completion by suicide.