Image copyright Getty Images Northern Ireland’s suicide rate over the past five years could be lower than previously thought after a review found some drug-related deaths, originally recorded as suicide, were accidental.
It was carried out by statistics agency Nisra and the Coroners’ Service.
Provisional figures for 2019 show there were 197 suicides, compared to 307 in 2018 – a drop of more than a third.
Nisra said the fall was due to “additional scrutiny” of undetermined deaths where drugs played a part.
A similar review is now being carried out into drug-related deaths between 2015 and 2018.
It is expected this review, when completed, will see a drop in the suicide rate for each of those years of between 20% and 30%.
For a number of years, Northern Ireland has been reported as having a higher suicide rate than the rest of the UK.
This review is expected to show that rate is now in line with other parts of the UK.
Definition of suicide
The definition of suicide in Northern Ireland, and in the rest of the UK, includes deaths from self-inflicted injury and also those from “events of undetermined intent”.
Professor Siobhan O’Neill, interim mental health champion for Northern Ireland, said the suicide statistics comprised of two groups of deaths – suicides where the coroner has declared a verdict of suicide and undetermined deaths.
She said undetermined deaths would traditionally have been included in the suicide statistics because they were probable suicides.
“Those included drug overdoses or drug-related deaths and the review that happened last year, analysed those.
“It was following that analysis that they (the Coroner and Nisra) decided the majority of those were not suicide deaths,” she said.
“So when those deaths were taken out of our suicide rate last year, the number goes down substantially, compared with previous years.
“With previous years, they’re now undergoing the same exercise, to examine those undetermined deaths in more detail, so that we can get more accurate suicide statistics for the region.”
The purpose of the review is to make the statistical data collected by Nisra more accurate.
It will not have any impact on what has been recorded on death certificates. The cause of death will remain the same.
Due to a number of factors, the statistics for the years between 2015 and 2018 were discovered to have included a number of accidental drug deaths in the suicide figures.
Nisra and the coroner put a process in place to make sure the 2019 figures were as accurate as possible.
Of 86 cases reviewed by the coroner last year (2019), 57 were reclassified – for statistical purposes – as accidental, meaning they were no longer included in the suicide figures.
A similar review is now being carried out into undetermined deaths between 2015 and 2018, where drugs were a factor.
It is expected that the number of recorded suicides in each of these years will drop by as much as 30%.
Nisra hopes the review will be complete by May 2021.
‘Suicide narrative’
In the first half of 2020, 102 suicide deaths were recorded in Northern Ireland and Nisra estimates that the overall suicide figure for this year will be somewhere between 200 and 220 – roughly in line with the provisional figures for 2019, and the expected revised figures for 2015 to 2018.
Part of the narrative around suicide deaths is that Northern Ireland, for several years, has had a higher rate than other UK nations.
It has also been reported that Northern Ireland has a higher rate of suicide than the Republic of Ireland.
However, this is a difficult comparison to make as Ireland’s Central Statistics Office has different criteria for recording suicide.
Prof O’Neill said it is no longer accurate to describe Northern Ireland as having the UK’s highest suicide rate based on the new figures.
She said: “The provisional number of suicide deaths in 2019 is 197. In previous years, the number would have been around 300, so that’s a reduction by around a third.
“And it means that our suicide rate is probably closer to that of England and a bit lower than Scotland – it’s around 11 per 100,000 population.”
‘We still lose people’
Alex Bunting, director of mental health and addiction services at the charity Inspire, said suicide had been an issue in Northern Ireland for some time, particularly since the peace process.
“I think this realignment of figures, if it does bring us in line with the rest of the UK, that’s ok… so long as we can provide a good rationale for why we’re doing it,” he said.
“And also a better understanding of how we can prevent, how we can challenge and how we can remove a lot of those deaths, because people are still dying, from drug related deaths or by suicide. We still lose the same amount of people.
“A mental health strategy needs to address both of those issues.”
The Department of Health said it remains fully committed to funding suicide prevention “irrespective of any change to the methodology of classifying deaths as suicide”.
“The department is seeking additional funding for future years for suicide prevention.”
NISRA has said it recognises that this is a sensitive matter and confirmed that it has communicated with a number of key groups and the third sector, so they are clear about the statistical review.
Claire Curran, chairperson of Families’ Voices Forum, a support group for families bereaved through suicide, said Northern Ireland’s target must be zero suicides.
“Every death is one too many by suicide and actually 197 is still a lot of people. If we lost that many people in a plane crash, there would be uproar and much more done,” she said.
“We need to protect our loved ones and we need to get better at preventing suicide and we need to encourage people to seek out help and support.”
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