[The suicide analysis in Bjelovarsko-Bilogorska County in 1988-2005 period]

Every forty seconds a person commits suicide according to the WHO, each year nearly one million people, mostly men in their sixties, but in recent years suicides of young men (aged 15 to 29 years) have increased. The last twenty years in Croatia, the annual number of suicides has been between 871 and 1142. We analyzed the number of suicides, rate, methods, scene and time of committing, gender, age and profession of committers, as well as interdependence of scene, methods and vocation, upon the pattern of 804 cases of suicides committed from 1988 to 2005 in Bjelovarsko-Bilogorska County. Our district is characterized by high suicide rate (31/100000). People who perform suicide are predominantly older and men more frequently then women. To add emphasis, there were 2.49% suicides committed by adolescents in overall sample. The most frequent method of performing suicide was by hanging, most suicides were commmitted at the start of the working week, also in morning hours and more in spring and summer months. Methods of committing suicide are correlated with access of means and scene of committting (indirectly with profession). Motives alter depending on committers' age, the most frequent motive being illness.