The study is based on data from over 4.5 million people living in Sweden. It is one of the first studies to investigate the risk specifically for healthcare personnel in Sweden, according to Alicia Nevirana, the study's main author.
Previously, one has mainly compared doctors with the general population, but we want to compare several groups within healthcare with groups with corresponding education length, she says.
Patient-related work
Compared to people working in other areas, several groups within healthcare have a higher risk of suicide and suicide attempts. Above all, the risk was higher among those who work close to patients.
In total, over 750,000 healthcare employees were included in the material, and the researchers have taken into account factors such as sex, age, foreign background, and known diseases, which can also affect the outcome. Nurses had a 61 percent increased risk of suicide compared to non-care personnel. Doctors had a 57 percent higher risk, and psychiatrists stood out with almost three times the increased risk. But also specialists in surgery, anesthesia, intensive care, and general practitioners had a high risk.
Unclear why
Mental illness and lack of influence over the work situation are things that have been linked to an increased risk of suicide in previous studies.
We cannot say from the study what it is due to, but it is natural to think that it is about meeting a lot that is heavy. But also tough schedules and a low possibility of influencing one's own work situation, says Alicia Nevriana, who researches at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institute.
Another conclusion the researchers could draw was that suicide through poisoning was more common among people with healthcare professions than among other groups.
Alicia Nevriana hopes that the results, which are published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, will lead to a structural discussion about how healthcare personnel are doing.
