What has been the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the French population? According to a report released Tuesday by the National Suicide Watch (ONS), the latter had a mixed effect. The latter evokes a general decrease in suicides during the 2020 confinements and a differentiated evolution of suicidal gestures according to populations.
Decline in 2020
Contrary to what was feared, the pandemic did not cause “an immediate increase in suicidal behavior,” the DREES observatory – the statistics service of the health and social ministries – indicates in this document.
Suicidal gestures even “declined at the start of the pandemic despite an increase in anxiety-depressive disorders and sleep difficulties,” the organization writes.
Thus, deaths by suicide in the general population decreased by 20% and 8% during the two confinements of 2020 compared to previous years, and short-stay hospitalizations for self-harm decreased by 10% in 2020 compared to the previous year. period 2017- 2019, evaluate.
Young women most affected
However, this decline did not continue outside the lockdown because “total deaths by suicide, their distribution by age or place of death” between the beginning of January 2020 and the end of March 2021 “do not appear to have been affected”. due to the pandemic,” continues the ONS.
In fact, since the end of 2020, hospitalizations for self-inflicted injuries have increased significantly among “adolescent girls and young women, in contrast to the rest of the population,” the observatory notes.
The latter were affected “by the first confinement, with an increase in depressive syndromes, which did not return to pre-pandemic levels once their most acute phases were overcome,” he stresses, referring to the “accentuating role” of pre-existing psychological disorders. . vulnerabilities played by Covid-19 in young people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.
“These developments accentuate pre-existing trends in the health crisis. The increased psychological vulnerability of young people to the health crisis has acted as an additional risk factor for deteriorating mental health and suicidal behaviour, including the Covid-19 crisis” . an accentuating and revealing role”, can be read.
According to the authors, prevention among the youngest only works if it is “systemic”, meaning when “the different resources are articulated and reinforced”.
Source: BFM TV
