Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33168552›Full record

ArticleBMJ open2020

Implementation of a comprehensive surveillance system for recording suicides and attempted suicides in rural India.

Lakshmi Vijayakumar, Soumitra Pathare, Nikhil Jain, Renuka Nardodkar, Deepa Pandit, Sadhvi Krishnamoorthy, Jasmine Kalha, Laura Shields-Zeeman

Erratum issuedOpen access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
0.5field-weighted citation impact, top 21% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

Lakshmi VijayakumarDepartment of Psychiatry, Voluntary Health Services and SNEHA Suicide Prevention Centre, Chennai, India lakshmi@vijayakumars.com.
Soumitra PathareCentre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India.
Nikhil JainCentre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India.
Renuka NardodkarCentre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India.ORCID 0000-0003-4331-6008
Deepa PanditCentre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India.
Sadhvi KrishnamoorthyCentre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India.
Jasmine KalhaCentre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, India.
Laura Shields-ZeemanMental Health & Prevention, Trimbos-instituut, Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Indian Law Institute · INTrimbos Institute · NLVoluntary Health Services Hospital · IN

Funding

SPIRIT - Suicide Prevention & Implementation Research InitiativeU19MH113174 · NIMH · STICHTING TRIMBOS-INSTITUUT · PI PATHARE, SOUMITRA · 2017 to 2021
$2.6M
NIMH NIH HHS U19 MH113174
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionWHO reports that 78 of the 140 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) do not have a registration system for suicides and attempted suicides. Absence of data on suicide and attempted suicide in LMICs, which account for 79% of suicides worldwide, is a major impediment in understanding the magnitude of the problem and formulating prevention strategies to reduce suicide and self-harm. A comprehensive surveillance system has the potential to address this data gap. The objective of this study is to describe the development of a comprehensive surveillance system in rural India by adding a community based component and reflect on its added value in obtaining data on suicide and attempted suicide compared with relying only on hospital and police records.

methodThe comprehensive system consists of three components. Community surveillance involved collecting information on suicides and attempted suicides from third party key informants such as village heads, teachers, priests, shopkeepers, private physicians, private hospitals and community health workers. The second component consisted of data from public health facilities. The final component consisted of suicide data from police records. Information was collected for a period of 12 months from August 2018 to July 2019 from 116 villages (population 377 276) in Gujarat, India.

resultsAn average of 710 community informants were interviewed each month (mean: 6.72 informants per village). The community surveillance system identified 67 cases of suicide compared with 30 cases by hospital and police records (Cochran's Q test 67.9 p<0.01) and 70 attempted suicides compared with 51 from the hospital and police records (Cochran's Q test 66.6 p<0.01). DISCUSSION: This is the first report of implementing a large-scale comprehensive surveillance system for suicide and attempted suicide in a LMIC. The combination of community surveillance system and official data from hospital and police records addresses the problem of under-reporting of suicide and suicide attempts in India and other LMIC.

Indexed as

SuicideAdultFemaleHumansIndiaMaleMiddle AgedRural PopulationSuicide, Attemptedmental healthpsychiatrysuicide & self-harm

Identifiers

PMID33168552
PMCPMC7654119
OpenAlexW3099415525

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.