High suicide rate and easy access to guns are linked
2 October 1998
High suicide rate and easy access to guns are linked
By Shelley Wright
LEADING psychiatrists have questioned the extensive ownership of firearms by farmers after a survey revealed that 40% of suicides among producers in England and Wales involved guns.
The Oxford University team that conducted the research said restricting farmers access to guns and agricultural chemicals could prevent some suicides, especially among those known to be depressed or at risk in other ways.
According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, both families and doctors have a role to play in encouraging this.
Professor of psychiatry Keith Hawton and his research team analysed the data on 719 deaths in farmers in England and Wales between 1981 and 1993 in which a verdict of suicide or undetermined cause was recorded.
Almost 45% of the deaths were found to have involved methods regarded as farming-specific, incl-uding firearms (40%), agricultural chemicals and animal medicines. About 30% of the deaths were due to hanging, while 16% were attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning.
The survey, published yesterday (Thur) in The British Journal of Psychiatry, concluded that farmers committing suicide tended to use methods to which they had easy access.
"The extensive ownership of firearms by farmers should be questioned," the authors said.
They noted a reduction in firearm death rates during the study period, particularly after 1989 when new laws on gun ownership, registration and storage were introduced. "There were also fewer farming suicides after this date.
Restricting farmers access to a means of killing themselves was important because suicidal crises were often brief and suicidal acts, including fatal ones, were often highly impulsive.
The study, which also involved talking to many of the victims relatives, found that access to firearms was sometimes not restricted even when families were aware of the suicide risk.
"Where a farmer is known to be depressed, or otherwise at risk of suicide, families should be encouraged to limit access to firearms and other dangerous means such as agricultural poisons.
"Clinicians treating depressed farmers could clearly have a role in encouraging this, especially since we have found that approximately half of all depressed farmers who killed themselves were receiving treatment for their depression," said the report. *