Deaths over 65 years of alleged suicide

Aim: Suicide is the biggest act of violence against a person who prefers death over life and ends their life voluntarily. Investigation of different age periods shows suicide incidents intensify in older ages and the rate of completed suicides increase with the increase of age. In our study we examined elderly death with suicidal claims to collect data such as demographical properties, autopsy results, the causes, and characteristics of suicides, to compare collected data with existing literature, to see the effect of our region on these data and to make suggestions to prevent elderly suicides. Materials and Methods: We examined crime scene, autopsy and postmortem examination reports of 447 cases with suicide claim who are 65 years old or older, and whose autopsies had been made in Institute of Forensic Medicine, Izmir Group Presidency Morgue Specialization Department over a 10-year period (2008-2017). We evaluated the sociodemographic data such as age, sex, and factors such as the time of suicide, the way of suicide, the reasons that lead to suicide, the previous suicide attempts and the presence of suicide note. Results: The gender distribution of the cases has been found as 74.9% male and 25.1% female. When we look at suicide methods, hanging is one of the most commonly used methods (49.7%) followed by usage of a firearm (19.7%) and intake of a chemical substance (15.2%). When we look at the seasonal distribution of the suicides, we observed suicides are most frequently occurred during spring (28.2%) and summer (27.1%), and less frequently observed during autumn (21.5%). In 32.9% of the cases, there were no negative factors causing suicide according to cases' relatives. When we look at the factors that may cause suicide, we determined 23.3% of the cases have physical diseases, 6.3% of the cases experienced the death of their close relatives, 6% of the cases committed suicide due to economic reason, 5.5% of the cases were affected by physiological diseases. 10.8% of the cases had suicide notes. Our findings show the 7.6% of the cases were attempted suicide before, and 12.1% cases had suicidal thoughts lately without a previous suicide attempt. Conclusion: Increasing the knowledge about being elder and old age for the ones who are living with or taking care of older adults can help us to understand the reasons which lead to elderly suicides. Governmental and non-governmental organizations should inform the society, especially the ones who are living with elders, about how an elder can enjoy their old ages and also create an awareness about the risk of elderly suicides and actions to be taken, also they should educate the society about actions to encourage elders to live and enjoy their lives, how to support them in case of medical situations and/or loss of certain abilities, which are big burden for elders, the necessity of heaving professional physiological support or help in case of loss of close relative and will to live and in case elders loose the joy of their life and become hopeless.