Epidemiologia dei suicidi nel territorio dell’ULSS 21 (Regione Veneto): primi risultati di una indagine retrospettiva (1989-1998).

The suicide is a diffuse phenomenon all over the world, underesteemed because of several factors, whose age and sex apparently are determinant elements, but they probably are not the most important and only ones. In Veneto, the suicide rate per 100.000 population, in the decade 1989-1998, increased till 1996 and than it decreased in the following two years. This retrospective epidemiological study, carried out in the territory of the ULSS 21 (Verona area), showed 146 cases of suicide in the considered decade. There are examined some variabilies for each case: temporal distribution, age, sex, civil status, profession, title of study and execution of the suicide. According to the collected data, the suicide concern expecially the young and elderly people, the male sex and the psychosocial precarious conditions. A health promotion program, planned on the ground of the outcomes of the study, in order to evidence highest risk conditions and premonitory signs, can be very useful in order to prevent the phenomenon.