Some Characteristics of Attempted Suicide

A study was made of 84 records of suicide attempts over a 12-month period from July, 1970, in the Port Kembla area of New South Wales. The majority of attempts were made by women (64), whose mean age was 32-89 years. Seventy-five per cent of the men and 75% of the women were married. The mean age of the men was 37-65 years. All but 13 of the attempts at suicide were with drug overdoses and the majority of the overdoses were caused by barbiturates. An attempt was made to determine whether selected meteorological variables might be related to the suicidal acts. Some significant differences were found between weather variables for months having high and low incidences of attempts at suicide.