Impact of COVID-19 pandemic related lockdown on Suicide: Analysis of newspaper reports during pre-lockdown and lockdown period in Bangladesh and India

• Published in: Asian journal of psychiatry 2021-06, Vol.60, p.102649-102649, Article 102649
• Main Authors: Kar, Sujita Kumar, Menon, Vikas, Arafat, S.M. Yasir, Rai, Sagar, Kaliamoorthy, Charanya, Akter, Hasina, Shukla, Shreya, Sharma, Nivedita, Roy, Deblina, Sridhar, Vivekanandan Kavanoor
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bangladesh; Bangladesh - epidemiology; Communicable Disease Control; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 - psychology; Humans; India; India - epidemiology; Newspaper report; Newspapers as Topic; Pandemic; Pandemics; Public Policy; SARS-CoV-2; Suicide; Suicide - statistics & numerical data
• ISSN: 1876-2018; 1876-2026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102649

•Restrictions during lockdown impacted the suicide demographics in India and Bangladesh.•From pre-lockdown to lockdown period, there is increased preference of suicide by hanging than other modes of suicide.•Suicide of males predominate in terms of their proportion during the lockdown period in India than Bangladesh.•During the COVID-19 lockdown, suicide risk among house wives and unemployed people are high. The economic and social devastation wrought by the COVID-19 crisiscoupled with the unavailability of traditional coping resources is a “perfect storm” for suicide. Evidence suggests that its impact may be disproportionately high in low-and-middle-income countries. The study aimed to assess and compare nature and correlates of suicidesfrom news reportsduring the immediate pre-lockdown and lockdown phase of COVID-19 in Bangladesh and India. We performed analysis of suicide reports from purposively selected online vernacular and English newspapers of Bangladesh and two states/union territory in India, between January to June 2020. We divided the time period of observation into two phases: pre-lockdown and lockdown phase. Country wise findings between the two phases were compared in terms of demographic and characteristics of the reported suicide. A total of 769 news reports wereanalysed; 141 from Bangladesh and 628 from India. When compared to the pre-lockdown period, the odds of suicide by hanging was significantly higher during lockdownin India (adjusted Odds Ratios [aOR] = 3.8, p = 0.018) and Bangladesh (aOR = 3.1, p = 0.048). Suicide demographics in India were different from Bangladesh during lockdown; more males died by suicide in India (aOR = 2.7, p = 0.023) and more people died by hanging (aOR = 2.6, p = 0.029). The pandemic restrictions impacted suicide demographics in the studied regions of India and Bangladesh. Further research using population-based time-series data are warranted to investigate the issue.