Data on suicide and self-harm is an important tool when monitoring public health.
Trustworthy data about self-harm and suicide is essential for understanding the scale of these issues, identifying those most at risk and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to prevent self-harm and suicide.
It is therefore important that we understand the validity (are we measuring what we think we're measuring?) and reliability (do we measure in the same way, over time?) of data to ensure we are basing decisions and recommendations on good information.
Suicide Data in Ireland
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is responsible for reporting on suicide data in Ireland.
In Ireland, the decision as to whether someone has died by suicide is legally determined by Coroners and there is a time delay in the availability of data. Deaths by suicide must go through a coronial investigation, inquest and registration process.
Data on deaths by suicide is reported in stages. First, 'provisional' data is released based on the year of registration. This data is later revised to reflect year of occurrence and is considered ‘official’ at this stage. Finally, the data is revised later again to include 'late registrations', but this can happen years later.
Data from 2021 is the latest ‘official’ data released by the Central Statistics Office, however this data does not include late registrations which can increase figures substantially. The following figures are accurate as of 31 October 2023:
- 449 people died by suicide in 2021- 359 males (80%) and 90 females (20%)
- The overall suicide rate was 9.2 per 100,000*
- The male suicide rate was 14.9 per 100,000* compared to the female suicide rate of 3.6 per 100,000*
*Rates are age-standardised, find out more in our Using Suicide Data information here
The numbers and rates from 2021 and previous years are still subject to change with the inclusion of late registrations. This staged approach provides challenges and makes it difficult to identify trends or draw comparisons over time as at any given time, the data for different years may be at different stages.
In November 2023, the CSO published a review of late-registered deaths by suicide from 2007-2020 along with a brief explanation around the complexities of reporting. You can read the release here.
Self-Harm Data in Ireland
The National Self-Harm Registry Ireland records and reports information about self-harm presentations to hospital emergency departments across the country. The Registry is operated by the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF) and is funded by the National Office for Suicide Prevention (NOSP).
Statistics on self-harm are reported on an annual basis. The most recent data reported by the NSRF is from 2021 and the following figures are accurate as of February 2024:
- There were 12,661 presentations to hospital in 2021 by 9,533 persons
- 1 in 6 persons had a repeat attendance in 2021
- The overall self-harm rate was 196 per 100,000 with the highest rates amongst young people
- In males 20-24 years-old this was 1 in every 258
- In females 15-19 years-old this was 1 in every 113
The National Self-Harm Registry Ireland 2021 Annual Report can be found in full here
Information from the NSRF
Why record self-harm data?
Non-fatal self-harm is a more common form of suicidal behaviour than suicide and it is one of the strongest risk factors for suicide. Hospital-presenting self-harm can be one of the most severe types of non-fatal self-harm. As a result, reducing the rate of hospital-presenting self-harm is one of the two defined outcomes of Connecting for Life, Ireland’s National Strategy to Reduce Suicide 2015-2024.
What does the Registry do?
The Registry tells us how many self-harm presentations there are to hospital emergency departments across the country each year. It tells us which groups in the country make the most presentations, when the presentations happen, what type of self-harm is involved, and which areas have the highest rates. By providing this information, the Registry helps to inform the improvement of services for individuals who self-harm and wider self-harm and suicide prevention efforts.
What are my data protection rights if I attended hospital with self-harm?
If you attended a hospital emergency department with self-harm, your data may have been recorded by the Registry. Anyone is entitled to contact the Registry to enquire if their data has been recorded. If your data has been recorded, you have the right to request that it is withdrawn.
Samaritans Ireland recommendations on suicide and self-harm data
Collect timely and accurate self-harm data
Accurate and reliable data needs to be available in order to inform policy decisions and resource allocation. The National Suicide Research Foundation should be supported to ensure all hospitals are collecting and sharing data in a consistent and timely manner. All data should be standardised, validated and collected consistently to ensure transparency across the region.
Routine publication of suicide data on a wider set of risk factors, in both real-time datasets and national releases.
To support our understanding of key risk factors for suicide, including how they change over time, routine datasets should capture a wider range of characteristics. This would ideally include protected characteristics such as ethnicity and sexual orientation, as well as information that relates to suicide method and risk factors such as occupation, history of mental illness and contact with services.
Recognition of nuances to self-harm
When considering self-harm data it is important for researchers and policy makers to remember that the figures should be considered with wider literature. It can be difficult to determine the exact prevalence of self-harm in Ireland as the available data is reliant on individuals who come forward and present to emergency departments. Samaritans Ireland research shows that not everyone who self-harms will present to a hospital and their method of self-harm may also not be one of those included in the reporting. This means that self-harm is likely very underreported at a national level and a due to stigma is clouded by a certain level of stigma and secrecy.
Review of process for registering deaths by suicide.
In other jurisdictions, the standard of proof required for a suicide conclusion is ‘the balance of probabilities’, whereas in Ireland it is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Overly high burdens of proof can result in the number of suicides being underestimated, reducing the accuracy of suicide statistics. In addition to deaths by suicide likely being underestimated, the staged approach of reporting deaths by suicide in Ireland means there can be delays of a year or more. Timely death registration would enable quicker responses to emerging trends in suicide rates and avoid reported data being a mix of deaths from different years.