Young people leaving the UK armed forces at increased risk of suicide.

ED FROM Kapur N, While D, Blatchley N, et al. Suicide after leaving the UK armed forces—a cohort study. PLoS Med 2009;6:e26. Correspondence to: Navneet Kapur, Centre for Suicide Prevention, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; [email protected] Source of funding: Veterans Project Unit, UK Ministry of Defence. c Tables 1 and 2 are published online only at http://ebmh.bmj.com/content/vol12/ issue4 C O M M EN TA R Y S uicide among UK Armed Forces personnel receives much political, public and media attention. Suicide statistics comparing serving personnel with the general population are published annually. However, there are no studies which have examined the risk of suicide among UK veterans (those who have left the Armed Forces). Veterans may be at particular risk of suicide, given that a minority of those who leave the Armed Forces find the transition back into ‘‘civilian’’ life difficult. Kapur and colleagues have linked a database containing details of 233 803 individuals who have left the regular UK Armed Forces (between 1 April 1996 and 31 December 2005) to the databases held by the National Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide. This linkage led to the identification of 224 suicides among veterans. Standardised mortality ratios (based on data from the UK general population) showed that the number of suicides among male veterans was no different from the general population. Age group specific rate ratios showed that for all age groups the rate of suicide was lower for veterans compared with the general population, with the exception of young males (,25 years) where the rate ratios were significantly raised. Risk factors for suicide were being young (,25 years), male, untrained, in the Army, holding a non-officer rank, not being married and having short length of service (,4 years). These results are similar to those reported among serving personnel; serving personnel have fewer suicides than expected (compared with the UK general population) but there are more suicides than expected among those under 20 years of age in the Army. It is likely that pre-service vulnerability may explain much of the excess suicide ‘‘risk’’ among young military personnel (regardless of serving status). Nicola T Fear, DPhil and Simon Wessely, MD, FRCP, FRCPsych, FMedSci Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK Competing interests: SW is Honorary Civilian Consultant Advisor to the British Army. 1. Iversen A, Dyson C, Smith N, et al. ‘Goodbye and good luck’: the mental health needs and treatment experiences of British ex-service personnel. Br J Psychiatry 2005;186:480–6. 2. Fear NT, Ward VR, Harrison K, et al. Suicide among male regular UK Armed Forces personnel, 1984–2007. Occup Environ Med 2009;66:438–41. 3. Iversen AC, Fear NT, Simonoff E, et al. Influence of childhood adversity on health among male UK military personnel. Br J Psychiatry 2007;191:506–11. Aetiology EBMH November 2009 Vol 12 No 4 123 group.bmj.com on June 18, 2017 Published by http://ebmh.bmj.com/ Downloaded from