People who commit suicide have, in most cases, been victims of a "domino effect" of three components - depression, a traumatic loss, and the added depressing effect of alcohol abuse or illicit drug use.
This is one of the conclusions of Suicide in Ireland: A Global Perspective and a National Strategy, launched in Dublin yesterday. The 18-month study, which was carried out by Aware, finds that some kind of mental illness, particularly depression or an intoxicant problem, is a factor in 90 per cent of suicides. For young people, drug or alcohol abuse may be the beginning rather than the end of the "domino effect".
The report by Dr Patrick McKeon, a psychiatrist and chairman of Aware, was launched by the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, to coincide with Aware's Depression Awareness Week - DAWN.
Dr McKeon said that extensive coverage of suicide, while helping to destigmatise the issue, may have gone too far in removing a stigma "which has also helped to prevent some suicides. . . The focus should be on the plight of the bereaved rather than on the suicide."
While it reiterates many of the findings of the National Taskforce on Suicide established in 1995 - including the fact that suicide is now the principal cause of death in young people here, exceeding accidents and cancer, and that there has been a 400 per cent increase in suicide amongst young men since 1990 - the report takes issue with it on two points.
"We believe that the focus in preventing suicide should not be on identifying the high-risk categories but in changing attitudes," said Dr McKeon. "In terms of the long term, we must change people's attitudes, not just to depression but to all mental illness.
"Secondly, the alienation of young people needs to be addressed. To make an impact, an education programme on depression in the schools is essential."
The report also expresses concern at media handling of suicides. Mr Bernard McAnaney of Derry's Foyle Health and Social Services Trust said: "The sensationalisation of suicide must be dealt with."
He pointed to a study the Foyle Trust referred to in a report it carried out last year on suicide and the media, which found that in the days after the 1994 suicide of singer Kurt Cobain, the curtailed coverage in Seattle newspapers prevented copy-cat suicides, while, in Germany, extensive coverage of a suicide involving jumping in front of a train gave rise to 70 to 80 similar deaths in subsequent days.
