Suicide Rate Among Pharmacists Is Higher Than Among Other Professions - Study

Suicide is the 17th leading cause of death in the world, taking the lives of 700,000 people annually across the globe. From 1999 to 2017, the suicide rate among the US population increased from 10.5 to 14 per 100,000 people.

The fact that medical workers are at a higher risk of committing suicide is not new to researchers, but they were surprised to find pharmacists at the top of professions with the highest suicide rates.

Published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, researchers from the University of California used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), which covered the period from 2003 to 2018 in their study.

Statistics from 39 US states contained information describing suicides, including such characteristics as the occupation of the deceased. The analysis of the studied period revealed that the NVDRS system recorded 316 suicides of pharmacists and 213,146 cases of suicidal deaths among members of other population groups. Of the 316 pharmacists, 75 percent were male and 85 percent were white. The average age was 53.5 years, while the average age of other people who committed suicide was 49 years.

The suicide rate among pharmacists was higher than among the rest of the population. According to scientists, out of 100,000 pharmacists, 20 people commit suicide, and out of 100,000 representatives of other population groups, only 12 commit suicide per 100,000 people.

Firearms were the most common suicide method, accounting for 134 out of the 316 deaths, followed by poisoning, which was used in 79 deaths. The former was similar among pharmacists and nonpharmacists, but “poisoning was more common among pharmacists” (29.4% vs 16.7%, respectively), while “hanging, strangulation, or suffocation was more common among nonpharmacists” (13.0% vs 24.5%, respectively), according to the study.