Contrary to what part of the medical world had feared, the coronavirus pandemic has not increased the number of suicides, according to the national observatory dedicated to the study of this phenomenon. With the exception of young women and adolescent girls.
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With the Covid-19 crisis, some health professionals had predicted an “epidemic of suicides” in France. It is ultimately nothing. According to figures from the National Suicide Observatory – eBetween January 2020 and April 2021, 11,200 people took their own lives. A number slightly lower than the annual average observed between 2015 and 2019.
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During the first confinement, from March 17 to May 11, 2020, the number of deaths in France fell by 20%, and by 8% during the second confinement, from October 30 to December 15, 2020. Over these two periods, the share of suicides also decreased. How to explain it? According to the Suicide Observatory – whose mission is to produce figures but also to promote research on this phenomenon – the anguish was able to be alleviated by the feeling that this ordeal, this crisis, was not individual but collective. . The psychiatric care system has also been able to be flexible and families have been able to take better care of people at risk.
The Covid-19 crisis has not broken the trend observed since the mid-1980s: the decline in the number of people ending their lives. On the other hand, attempts and suicides continued to increase in one category of the population: adolescents and young women. This is even more marked when they come from the poorest backgrounds.