Suicidal behaviour across the African continent: a review of the literature

BMC Public Health

Table 3 Incidence of suicide attempts in African countries with published data identified by our systematic search of the literature

Country and source publication	WHO mortality stratum	Study population	Year	Mean annual suicide attempt rates per 100,000 population/Lifetime prevalence	Sex ratio
Country and source publication	WHO mortality stratum	Study population	Year		Male:Female
Ghana
Adinkrah [14]	D	National-level data	2006-2008	0.1 per 100,000^a	10:1
Liberia
Johnson et al. [38]	D	Sampled from whole country [n = 1,666]	May 2008	Lifetime prevalence: 6.0%	0.7:1
Morocco
Agoub et al. [43]	D	Casablanca, random sample [n = 800]	Not available	Lifetime prevalence: 2.1%	0.5:1
Nigeria
Gureje et al. [37]	D	Sampled from 5 of the 6 geopolitical regions [n = 6752]	Feb 2002-May 2003	Lifetime prevalence: 0.7%	1.0:1
Ethiopia
Bekry [17]	E	Addis Ababa (hospital presentations)	1981/82-1995/96	49.8 per 100,000^b	2.9:1
Malawi
Dzamalala et al. [19]	E	Blantyre district (hospital presentations)	2000-2003	10.7 per 100,000	0.8:1
Namibia
Ikealumba & Couper [21]	E	Rehoboth (hospital presentations)	2001	100.0 per 100,000	0.9:1^c
South Africa
Joe et al. [39]	E	Sampled from whole country [n = 4,351]	Jan 2002-June 2004	Lifetime prevalence: 2.9%	0.3:1
Uganda
Kinyanda et al. [44]	E	Kampala (hospital presentations)	Jan 2002-Oct 2002	10.1 per 100,000	1.7:1
Un. Rep. Tanzania
Ndosi & Waziri [45]	E	Dar es Salaam (hospital presentations)	Jan 1991-June 1993	5.2 per 100,000	0.5:1
Zimbabwe^d
Chibanda et al. [46]	E	Harare (hospital presentations)	Jul 1997-Dec 1997	49.9 per 100,000	0.2:1

^aaverage rate, range of annual suicide attempts 0.03 to 0.08 per 100,000; ^baverage rate, range of annual suicide attempts 7.4 to 163.0 per 100,000; ^csex rates for suicide attempts include one suicide; ^dIncidence figures do not include those admitted to the intensive care unit.
WHO: World Health Organization.
WHO mortality stratum D: high child mortality and high adult mortality; WHO mortality stratum E: high child mortality and very high adult mortality.
Two countries have additional publications available: South Africa [40], Durban lifetime suicide attempt rate 3.4%; Ethiopia [41, 42], Addis Ababa and Butajira lifetime suicide attempt rates 0.9% and 3.2%.
Population estimated for Harare, Zimbabwe [46] based on data from the 1992 and 2002 Zimbabwe census. Source: Central Statistical Office [10, 11].

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