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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1494841

The Trend of Suicide and Self-harm in the Chinese Population from 2018 to 2022 Based on Ambulance Medical Emergency Cases: A retrospective study

Provisionally accepted
Ruizhe Yang Ruizhe Yang Jinsu Zhou Jinsu Zhou *Francis Manyori Bigambo Francis Manyori Bigambo Wu Yan Wu Yan Xu Wang Xu Wang *Haibo Yang Haibo Yang *
  • Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: This study investigates the trends of suicide and self-harm in Nanjing, China, through four years of data collection, aiming to provide valuable information for developing effective suicide prevention strategies.Methods: This descriptive study analyzed Nanjing Emergency Medical Center (NEMC) ambulance records from Nanjing (2018Nanjing ( -2022) ) to investigate suicide and self-harm events. Out of 689,305 records, 4,261 cases were included after exclusions.The study categorized incidents into 4,103 suicide events and 158 self-harm cases.Descriptive statistics and content analysis were conducted to identify characteristics and themes related to these events, with age groups defined according to American Medical Association standards.The study highlights drug poisoning as the leading method, accounting for 63.56% of the 4,103 suicide events. It notes significant trends by age, gender, and season, with males showing higher rates of self-harm. The study emphasizes the need for targeted prevention strategies, particularly focusing on drug-related suicides among adults and adolescents, as well as the prevalence of various self-harming behaviors.To reduce self-harm and suicide, interventions must be strengthened for women, who experience higher rates. Key strategies include regulating pesticides and psychotropic drugs, increasing access to mental health resources, and launching community awareness campaigns. Additionally, training healthcare providers and promoting family education can enhance support for women facing mental health challenges.

    Keywords: Suicide, self-harm, Ambulance medical emergency, Epidemiology, Chinese population

    Received: 12 Sep 2024; Accepted: 02 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Zhou, Bigambo, Yan, Wang and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Jinsu Zhou, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
    Xu Wang, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
    Haibo Yang, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.