Suicide and homicide before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Milan, Italy

Raffaella Calati; Guendalina Gentile; Michele Fornaro; Fabio Madeddu; Stefano Tambuzzi; Riccardo Zoja

doi:10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100510

Suicide and homicide before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Milan, Italy

J Affect Disord Rep. 2023 Apr:12:100510. doi: 10.1016/j.jadr.2023.100510. Epub 2023 Feb 23.

Authors

Raffaella Calati^{1

2}, Guendalina Gentile³, Michele Fornaro⁴, Fabio Madeddu¹, Stefano Tambuzzi³, Riccardo Zoja³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
² Department of Adult Psychiatry, Nimes University Hospital, Nimes, France.
³ Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health, Section of Legal Medicine and Insurance, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁴ Section of Psychiatry - Department of Neuroscience, Reproductive Sciences, and Dentistry, University School of Medicine Federico II, Naples, Italy.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been postulated to account for inflated rates of either suicides or homicides. Nonetheless, results are discordant, in particular concerning suicide. We aimed to perform a retrospective analysis of suicides and homicides in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy (districts of Milan and Monza Brianza), the Italian region most seriously impacted by the pandemic outbreak.

Methods: Data were collected during the autopsies performed at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Milan. We presented suicides and homicides in the years 2015-2021 and compared the year 2021 to 2019, a pre-COVID-19 year.

Results: Data may allow us to cautiously hypothesize a normalization of trends ("regression" to the mean effect) as time passes from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Limitations: Limited number of events, in particular, homicides.

Conclusions: Recording historical reports from the same region is warranted besides the comparisons across different countries.

Keywords: COVID-19; Homicide; Italy; Suicide.