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Historical change of suicide seasonality in the canton of zurich, Switzerland.

Ajdacic-Gross V, Bopp M, Eich D, Gostynski M, Rössler W, Gutzwiller F

Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. k320256@ifspm.unizh.ch

Current research is yielding an increasingly heterogeneous picture of suicide seasonalities: They seem to depend on methods and, moreover, they seem to have smoothed in recent decades. This work examines the latter issue by comparing suicide seasonalities in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, in the 16 th -18 th centuries, 1901-1920 and 1969-94. The results indicate shifts of peaks and lows on suicide seasonalities over the centuries, with a smoothing of seasonalities toward the 21 th century. The recent period does not show any suicide seasonality at all. The canton of Zurich seems to be ahead of the general trend found in other regions of Switzerland.

Published 21 April 2005 in Suicide Life Threat Behav, 35(2): 217-26.
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