The Taiwanese Society of Suicidology (TSOS) yesterday said the suicide rate in Taiwan had gradually dropped over the past few years, but people who are out of a job have a higher tendency to want to commit suicide than those with a job.
On World Suicide Prevention Day yesterday, TSOS chairman Lee Ming-been (李明濱) said “suicide has become a world-wide problem, and an average of about one million people commit suicide in the world each year, with an average of about one person that dying through suicide every 40 seconds and one person that attempts to kill themselves in every 4 seconds.”
Lee said that according to a telephone survey conducted by the TSOS this year, the results showed that 1.4 percent of the people surveyed had been disturbed by the thought of committing suicide in the past week, 6.9 percent of the people surveyed have emotional problems and 21.8 percent among these people have asked for help from medical facilities.
Photo: CNA
The survey results also revealed that the number of unemployed people under 40 who claim to have suffered from emotional distress was 1.98 times higher than the number of those employed and the number of unemployed people who have thought of committing suicide was 3.77 times of that of those with jobs.
In addition, for people aged over 40, the number of unemployed people who suffered from emotional distress was 3.55 times that of employed people, while the number of unemployed people who have thought of commiting suicide was even 6.13 times higher than that of people in employment.
“Suicidal tendencies are attributable to many factors, they are not down to just one simple reason, and our goal of suicide prevention by instructing people to deal with emotions is to help them achieve mental health and live happily,” Lee said.
He also said training “gatekeepers” to enforce the measures of “ask, respond and refer” — actively caring and asking, responding and accompanying, refering the individual to counseling or medical care facilities — have assisted suicide prevention in recent years.
Department of Health Minister Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達) said “according to the WHO’s classification of suicide rates, the suicide death rate of a nation is considered high when it reaches more than 13 per 100,000 of the population, and the suicide death rate in Taiwan finally dropped to about 12.3 per 100,000 of the population last year,” indicating suicide prevention measures proved effective.
The TSOS said everyone can become a gatekeeper of suicide behavior if they are willing to care a little more for others, pay more attention to listening to them and lending a helping hand to those individuals who showed signs of suicidal tendencies.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS