Suicide attempts in New Zealand and Australia

Abstract

Abstract New Zealand and Australia both have national suicide prevention strategies in place. Initially, the prevention activities delivered through these strategies focused on completed suicide only. More recently, there has been an acknowledgement that suicidal behaviours occur on a gradient and attempted suicide is a significant problem in its own right. It is estimated that for every completed suicide, there are approximately fifty suicide attempts carried out by females and ten by males. In both countries, suicide attempts are the highest among young people, however, national population-based surveys suggest that, overall, nearly 0.5 per cent of the adult p..