Social support and rural suicides-a matched case-control study

Objective To understand the a ssociation between social support and rural suicide in order to provide scientific basement for suicide prevention and intervention in rural population.Methods Three counties were selected from disease surveillance points of Shandong province.Suicide cases in 25 towns happened from Sept 1, 2008 to Aug 31, 2009 were recruited.One informant of each suicide or paired control with same age (±3 years), gender and residence as the suicide was in terviewed by a trained interviewer.Results The score of social support of the suicides was lower than that of controls.Marriage, living a lone, family economic status, educational level, health status, and Party/L eague member were related to social support.Family or neighbors, especially family was the main source of help that rural people could get from.After adjusting for marital status, health status, religion, mental illness, and whether they were living a lone, the objective support and utilization of social support were still a ssociated with suicide.Conclusion High social support,especially high objective support and utilization of social support, might be a protective factor for suicide in rural population.