Why are young Scottish males hanging themselves?

[Nasturtium]

I found this weird headline at Medical Express:

Gap between Scottish and English suicide rates widens


A new study has revealed the widening gap in suicide rates between Scotland and England & Wales due to a large extent to the number of young Scottish men taking their lives.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-gap-scottish-english-suicide-widens.html

The researcher commented:

"In a future companion paper we will suggest explanations for the persisting higher rate of suicide in Scotland."

Any ideas?

[Cimmerianbloke]

I remember a few years back, a wave of youngster's suicides in Wales triggered tremendous reactions, there were suspiscions of "suicide pacts" among the young. I suppose the weight of the traditional way of life in some rural parts of the country clashes with teenagers' psyche and drives them to desperate acts.

[edao]

It would be interesting to know where most of these are occurring, I'd put my money on it being from Dundee upwards.
If I had to live in Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness or some god forsaken Island, with no jobs constant freezing rain 6 months of near darkness, I could relate to their desire to kill themselves.

To be honest most of Scotland is a fairly grim place, Glasgow has a reputation in the UK as a rough city and having grown up their I can tell you its all true. If I were a Roman coming up this way I'd be thinking about the glorious med and thinking, yeah this isn't worth having to deal with these head cases.

[Dagne]

As I understand, the main reason is that it is much more difficult for men to adapt, secondly, there is alcohol, then changing roles of men and women, failing support from families...

[spongetaro]

If I had to live in Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness or some god forsaken Island, with no jobs constant freezing rain 6 months of near darkness, I could relate to their desire to kill themselves.

There is clearly a link between lack of sun and Suicide. All places situated north of the norhern hemisphere (Iceland, Japan...) are reputed for their high suicide rate. Besides that, France is also reputed for its high suicide rate but don't know really why.

[Dagne]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_suicide_rate

Yes, I agree that people get happier with the sunshine! But suicide rates seem to be always higher for men than women in any country. So there must be some other explanation to it, too.

[Franco]

That makes no sense. Scottish people are used to live under crappy weather. Some may have not even visited other more sunny countries. Why would they commit suicide because something they consider to be so natural? Laplanders live in a boreal zone which is much colder and nights can be eternal, but they don't hang themselves. I think that the reason behind these suicides is contrarily to what people may think high standard of living. Yes, developed countries have higher suicide rates than the poor ones. Why? Because in poor countries even if people live under terrible conditions, they are used to them so they don't see specially disgraceful to be dirty poor. Human dignity is not idolised like in rich countries. In developed nations for example many people are afraid of getting older. Mass media have brainwashed us to believe that we should be young forever, hence the plastic surgey industry and such. People who become old and don't have enough money for plastic surgey may commit suicide just because they can't tolerate looking at the mirror and seeing an old person who is not desirable anymore for the market.

[Dagne]

I've read a joke yesterday in one of Lithuanian newspapers:

"It has become clear by now that the purpose of all our efforts, undertakings, our goal of being on this Earth is to pay the heating bill. This is why people in warm Middle East and even in Greece are always in a state on unrest.

Obviously, only those peoples who clearly see the goal in life stay unruffled".

[hope]

I`m not sure it is easy to say why so many suicides are recorded for Scotland.
Probably to better understand it you would need some way of looking at the background of each and then categorise them into
say rates resulting from drug abuse, depression, unemployment, those with a para suicide record etc. to get a better picture. Each suicide has a story behind it. Every suicide is a sad thing.

If you want to examine some things that we do know, then we can say say Scotland at this time has a high drug abuse rate, although according to The Herald ( can be googled) it is showing signs of dropping. However I believe it is still one of the highest in Europe per head.

Also there is a pretty high rate of unemployment, so this could add to some of the factors.

Up to the early 70s Scotland actually had one of the lower rates for suicide and not to then did the rise begin with the gap between it and England, Wales and I believe Northern Ireland widening in the 90s.
However it is not among the highest ranking European countries for suicide rates, I think the highest is Lithuania (ac. to Wikepedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_suicide_rate

[L.D.Brousse]

Hope The US Military is having the same problem new stats are about one soldier a day is taking his own life. Since my return from Iraq I have 2 buddy's that have done it why I don't know. They are like my sons and it's painful I have told them I better be the next in the coffin being much older it's only natural

[hope]

Hope The US Military is having the same problem new stats are about one soldier a day is taking his own life. Since my return from Iraq I have 2 buddy's that have done it why I don't know. They are like my sons and it's painful I have told them I better be the next in the coffin being much older it's only natural

Yes L.D.Brousse this is a good point...some forget that suicide in many instances has more victims than the primary person as often it leaves behind loved ones and friends wondering why.
You speaking of soldiers and suicide in times of war brings to my mind a study regarding this that I read some time ago. Unfortunately
it is something that does not readily make the news given the circumstances.

[LeBrok]

I`m not sure it is easy to say why so many suicides are recorded for Scotland.
Probably to better understand it you would need some way of looking at the background of each and then categorise them into
say rates resulting from drug abuse, depression, unemployment, those with a para suicide record etc. to get a better picture. Each suicide has a story behind it. Every suicide is a sad thing.

If you want to examine some things that we do know, then we can say say Scotland at this time has a high drug abuse rate, although according to The Herald ( can be googled) it is showing signs of dropping. However I believe it is still one of the highest in Europe per head.

Also there is a pretty high rate of unemployment, so this could add to some of the factors.

Up to the early 70s Scotland actually had one of the lower rates for suicide and not to then did the rise begin with the gap between it and England, Wales and I believe Northern Ireland widening in the 90s.
However it is not among the highest ranking European countries for suicide rates, I think the highest is Lithuania (ac. to Wikepedia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...y_suicide_rate

Thanks for stats. I didn't know there is such big disproportion in suicide rate of men to women. Do men lose hope faster or are more predisposed to stress? Maybe women are more responsible for their families, not to leave them or cause pain? Maybe they are more life hungry?
Typically women are more emotional than men, so is it safe to conclude that some strong emotions keep them alive?

I'm not sure if there was ever a good research done to answer this divide in suicide rates.

@Brousse, American Army is huge. One suicide a day (though one too many) might not mean a catastrophic level, when compared to other nations or even other occupations. I would conclude that it is high, when pegged to general US population, just on high job stress alone and life becoming "cheap" and unimportant during wars.

[sparkey]

Thanks for stats. I didn't know there is such big disproportion in suicide rate of men to women. Do men lose hope faster or are more predisposed to stress? Maybe women are more responsible for their families, not to leave them or cause pain? Maybe they are more life hungry?
Typically women are more emotional than men, so is it safe to conclude that some strong emotions keep them alive?

It's because men are better at going through with it. Women are more disposed to thinking about suicide and they attempt it more often, but fail the large majority of the time. Women are more likely to try poisoning, which has a high failure rate. Men, on the other hand, usually shoot themselves. See: Suicide DataSheet

[Keegah]

Women tend to do it to bring attention to their problems, I think. I doubt they TRULY intend to kill themselves, it's more of a display to get help, albeit in a very immature way. On the other hand, men fully intend to end their lives when they make an attempt.

[hope]

Thanks for stats. I didn't know there is such big disproportion in suicide rate of men to women. Do men lose hope faster or are more predisposed to stress? Maybe women are more responsible for their families, not to leave them or cause pain? Maybe they are more life hungry?
Typically women are more emotional than men, so is it safe to conclude that some strong emotions keep them alive?

I'm not sure if there was ever a good research done to answer this divide in suicide rate

Yes, men do commit suicide more than women but interestingly Le Brok, women are more likely to self harm. With teenagers, girls are three times more likely to self harm than boys of similar age.
I`m not sure why men commit suicide more than women but in my opinion women are more likely to seek medical help or council than men, ( I think Keegah was quick to make this point) perhaps seeking help early can make a difference ( depending on the cause of course.) Also in some cases there could be an element of what you say, women think of outcome for children ( not to imply men do not)
Of course it depends if either are at the stage of "rational" decision making.

[hope]

QUOTE=Keegah;396526]Women tend to do it to bring attention to their problems, I think. I doubt they TRULY intend to kill themselves, it's more of a display to get help, albeit in a very immature way. On the other hand, men fully intend to end their lives when they make an attempt.[/QUOTE]



There are some who are suffering from a mental disorder who will "attempt" suicide and not make it as you say Keegah, but even in these there is
the potential they will eventually make it.
People who self-harm usually do so to relieve stress and often hide the fact. However between 40 to 60 % of those who self harm
will commit suicide. At the moment I think(?) the U.K. has the highest rate of self harmers ( I really don`t like that word) showing at around 400 per 100,000 of people.

[hope]

Thanks for stats. I didn't know there is such big disproportion in suicide rate of men to women. Do men lose hope faster or are more predisposed to stress? Maybe women are more responsible for their families, not to leave them or cause pain? Maybe they are more life hungry?
Typically women are more emotional than men, so is it safe to conclude that some strong emotions keep them alive?.

This is an interesting read Le Brok.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/04...-men/5196.html
:
:
( I`m not too sure what I think about this one and their conclusions don`t really tell us much we did`nt
already know ( the test was interesting) but I found it worth a read.