ArticleEuropean psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists2025
Age- and sex-patterns of suicide trends in Europe: 1990-2022 comparative analysis of official WHO mortality data.
Article in European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists, 2025. 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 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The recent trend in youth suicide and its associated factors in South Korea: a time series analysis.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2026Article
- Suicide Prevention as a Pillar of Sustainable Mental Health: A Focused Comparative Narrative Review of the Republic of Cyprus and Selected European Countries in the Post-COVID-19 Era.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Age- and sex-patterns of suicide trends in Europe: 1990-2022 comparative analysis of official WHO mortality data - CORRIGENDUM.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUnderstanding how suicide rates vary across age, sex, and geography is essential to designing effective prevention strategies. We examined long-term trends in suicide mortality across European countries over three decades, with a focus on age-specific trajectories.
methodsUsing the WHO mortality database, we computed annual sex- and age-specific suicide rates (10-14 to 85+ age groups) from 1990 to 2022, for the most populous European countries, and aggregated rates for the EU-27 and four geographical areas (North, West, South, and Centre-East Europe). We also calculated percentage differences across four time periods (1990-1994, 2000-2004, 2010-2014, and 2020-2022), according to data availability.
resultsSuicide rates increased with age, peaking in older individuals (85+) in most countries (e.g., 82.0/100,000 in France in 2020-2022, 77.1/100,000 in Germany among males, in 2020), except in the UK and Northern Europe, where rates peaked at middle age (∼22/100,000 at 45-49, in 2020). EU-27 suicide rates in 2020 ranged from 5.5/100,000 (age 15-19) to 58.2/100,000 (85+) among males, and from 2.6 (15-19) to 8.6/100,000 (85+) among females. Male suicide rates were 3 to 8 times higher than female rates across all ages. While overall rates declined since 1990 in most countries, youth suicide increased after 2010 in Western (e.g., +12%, girls 15-19), Southern (+24.5%, girls 15-19), and Northern (+44%, girls 15-19 and 20-24) Europe. Rates among young and middle-aged adults recently rose in Spain, the UK, and Northern Europe, while they declined in Eastern Europe after the 1990s.
conclusionsDespite overall declines, our findings highlight marked heterogeneity in sex- and age-specific trends in suicide mortality across Europe. These patterns call for age-tailored prevention strategies that address evolving psychosocial stressors and structural determinants across the lifespan.
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