There are about one million deaths from suicide around the world every year with one person taking their own life every 45 seconds, the world congress of the International Association for Suicide Prevention heard yesterday.
Dr Jose Manoel Bertolote of the World Health Organisation told delegates attending the conference in Killarney that in addition to this there were between 10 and 40 million suicide attempts, or one suicide attempt every five seconds, across the globe.
"This is a serious public health problem as well as a tragedy for families," he said.
He added that traditionally suicide, which he described as a terrible plague, had been highest among the elderly but in many countries now like Ireland and New Zealand suicide rates peaked among younger age groups.
"We are witnessing a serious shift," he said.
He said the WHO was working with 25 countries to develop strategies for suicide prevention. "Suicide is a public health issue that can and should be prevented," he added. One of the main issues for many countries was having appropriate mental healthcare services, he said.
The conference heard details of how suicide trends vary across countries and Prof Michael Philips, executive director of the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Centre, told delegates that in China the suicide rate is twice that of Ireland and is far more common in rural than urban areas.
There are an estimated 287,000 suicides a year in China.
Furthermore, he said, research in China had found that about one-third of those who die by suicide and two-thirds of those who attempt suicide had no diagnosable mental illness.
This differed, he said, from in the west where "at least 95 per cent" of people who die by suicide have a diagnosable mental illness.
"A lot of the suicides in China are impulsive, a fight with the husband and you go home, you take pesticide and you're dead two hours later. So even thought they are very distraught and upset at the time, this is not what we in the professional world would consider mental illness.
"So the question is how do you deal with those. Then you go to think how can you decrease impulsiveness and change people's methods of coping with particular family stress because that's the major factor that's pushing people to these impulsive suicides."
He said different countries needed different strategies. "Every county has its specific problems.
"For example in Ireland the increase in alcohol use, particularly binge drinking, is a serious problem.
"The question is how do you address it. How can you change that. It's a complex problem," said Prof Philips.