The Covid-19 crisis has had “contrasting effects” on the French population, the National Suicide Observatory (ONS) estimated on Tuesday, citing a general drop in suicides during the 2020 confinements and a differentiated evolution of suicidal gestures in France. population function.
Contrary to what was feared, the pandemic did not lead to “an immediate increase in suicidal behavior”, indicates the observatory of the DREES – the statistics service of the health and social ministries – in a report on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis.
Suicides have decreased
Suicidal gestures even “decreased at the start of the pandemic despite an increase in anxiety-depressive disorders and sleep difficulties”, writes the organization. Deaths by suicide in the general population thus fell by 20% and 8% during the two confinements of 2020 compared to previous years, and short-stay hospitalizations for self-inflicted injuries by 10% in 2020 compared to the previous year. period 2017-2019, he assesses.
These figures, which have yet to be consolidated, correspond to data “Collected in other countries of similar economic level”, and suggest that the confinements “Could have punctually reduced the risk of suicide” thanks to the “feeling of sharing a collective ordeal “Or because of” increased surveillance by relatives “.
Mutilation Increases
However, this decline did not continue outside of confinement because “the overall number of deaths by suicide, their distribution according to age or place of death” between the beginning of January 2020 and the end of March 2021 “do not appear to have been affected by the pandemic”, continues the ONS.
Another lesson from the report: since the end of 2020, hospitalizations for self-inflicted injuries have increased significantly for “adolescent girls and young women, in contrast to the rest of the population”, points out the observatory.
The latter were affected “by the first confinement, with an increase in depressive syndromes, which did not return to pre-pandemic levels once past its most acute phases”, he underlines, referring to the “role of accentuation” of the pre-existing psychological vulnerabilities played by Covid-19 in young people from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds.