Mortality by suicide in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil (1996-2015)

To describe the epidemiological characteristics of suicide mortality in the state of Pernambuco, from 1996 to 2015.

Study with data from the Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade. The simple linear regression model was used to verify the trend in the period analyzed.

There were 6,229 suicides, of which 3,390 (54.4%) occurred in the second decade of study. The mortality rate was 4.7 per 100,000 inhabitants. The temporal trend presented a decrease of 23.5% (p=0.031). For the male sex and the age range between 20 and 39 years, there was a decline in self-inflicted death of 23.8% (p=0.018) and 26.1% (p=0.046), respectively.

The temporal analysis revealed a reduction in suicide mortality coefficients. This observation may contribute to better targeting of health interventions, optimizing resources and efforts, especially in suicide prevention.