Suicides and mortality from tuberculosis before and after dissolution of USSR: the trends analysis

Introduction: Tuberculosis and suicide belong to the medico-social problems and their epidemiological parameters are often considered as the indicators of psychosocial distress. There are theoretical premises and empirical evidence which suggest the positive association between suicide and mortality from tuberculosis both at individual and population levels. Aims: The aim of the present study is to run a comparative analysis between the epidemiological parameters of tuberculosis and the suicide rates in the republics of former Soviet Union: Slavic republics (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) and Baltic republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia). Methods: Trends in tuberculosis mortality and the suicide rates from 1981 to 2012 were analyzed employing Spearmen correlation analysis in order to assess bivariate relationship between the time series. Results: The results of analysis indicate the presence of a statistically significant positive association between tuberculosis mortality and suicide rates in Russia (r=0,42; p