Title: Seasonal effects on suicide rates - Wikipedia
Headings: Seasonal effects on suicide rates
Seasonal effects on suicide rates
Contents
General effects
Popular belief
Related factors
Gender
Biochemistry
Environment
Psychology
See also
References

Content: One international study on seasonal effects on suicide rates involving 20 countries showed an early summer peak in suicides. She concluded that "seasonal variation in suicide incidence could be explained by the increase in sunshine in summer months because of a relationship between sunshine, high temperatures, and suicide rate". Australian researchers found a "spring peak in the number of suicides committed in Brisbane, Australia, but the results were not statistically significant…and that Dublin reported the incidence of suicide varied according to seasons in the northern hemisphere". French sociologist Émile Durkheim had found similar results, reporting that more suicides occurred in the spring than in the summer. Rather than emphasizing the role of nature, Durkheim interpreted the seasonal variation in sociological terms; he wrote that most suicides took place in the spring because "everything begins to awake; activity is resumed, relations spring up, interchanges increase. In other words, it is the density of human interactions, and not the environment that caused higher incidence of suicide in spring or summer". Popular belief
Many people believe that suicide rates peak during the winter months. Intuitively, this makes sense given the existence of seasonal affective disorder and the tendency to associate winter with depression.