Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica
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Acta Psychiatr Scand · Feb 1995
Comparative StudyDefinite and undetermined forensic diagnoses of suicide among immigrants in Sweden.
A total of 707 cases of violent death (suicide, undetermined mode or accident) occurring in 1990 were investigated at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Stockholm. The catchment area of the Department includes about 1.9 million people. Fourteen percent of the population in the area are immigrants. ⋯ The findings in this study indicates that immigrant status should be considered as a risk factor for suicide in Sweden. Previous reports on the high suicide rates among immigrants in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States suggest that the overrepresentation of immigrants found in our study could represent a worldwide epidemiological trend related to voluntary and forced migration. Possible hypotheses that could explain this phenomenon are discussed.