[Suicide in Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province: decade 1990-2000]

The aim of the present study is to provide an epidemiological study about suicide in Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province, between January 1990 and December 2000.

The present study is based on the acquisition of data through the examination of model 45, that registers all the cases of violent death and suicide, filed in Verbania Republic Procuration.

The Verbano-Cusio-Ossola province extends 2,255 Km 2 and counts 161,248 inhabitants. The Procuration in Verbania has territorial jurisdiction on the whole province of our study.

The data obtained were presented in terms of descriptive analysis, evaluation of standardised rates of the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. In order to appreciate the differences in comparison with the mean rates of northern Italy. Standardised Mortality Rates (SMRs) with the confidential intervals (IC 95%) have been used.

In the eleven years period considered, 297 cases of suicide were notified at the Court with a rate of 16.74 per 100,000 inhabitants. The trend of suicide in the period examined is heterogeneous with significant differences between males and females. The analysis of SMRs points out that the incidence of suicide is higher in the province of VCO than in Italy in the same decade and that this difference is mostly due to an higher rate of suicide among women. The analysis of social-demographic parameters of the examined population confirms the data from international literature: suicide is more present in elderly, in widowers and in the retired.

The present study means to provide a description of the suicide phenomenon, in a specific geographical and cultural context, in order to point out the problematic sides in a diagnostic-clinical point of view that may be an incentive to a larger preventive care.