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British farmers more than twice as likely to contemplate suicide as general population

February 21, 2003

British farmers are more than twice as likely as the general population to contemplate suicide, shows research in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The findings have prompted the authors to call for British farmers' mental health to be monitored in the aftermath of the recent foot and mouth crisis.

The researchers based their findings on 425 farmers from Hereford, Norwich, and Preston who completed a validated questionnaire on mental health (Revised Clinical Interview Schedule or CIS-R). All questionnaires were filled in between March and July 1999.

The results were compared with almost 10,000 private householders, who had also completed the CIS-R in 1993, as part of a nationwide survey on Britain's mental health.

Most of the farmers were male, employed full time, and had been in their current job for 16 years or more. Their average age was 51. They complained most about fatigue, irritability, and sleep problems, but these three symptoms were also most often reported by participants in the nationwide mental health survey.

But at 6%, the overall prevalence of poor mental health among the farmers was actually lower than that among the householders. However, 3% of farmers said they thought that life was not worth living, and just under 1% had thought about killing themselves.

When set against the low rates of reported depression, farmers were actually more than twice as likely as their non-agricultural peers to think that life was not worth living. And when compared with only other rural or semi-rural householders, farmers were more than three times as likely to feel this way.

One in 10 of the farmers said their financial situation was difficult or very difficult, while 14% had debts they were unable to meet. Yet among those who said they were anxious or depressed, family rather then monetary problems were their primary concerns.

The authors comment that the relationship between depression and suicide among farmers seems to be very different from that among the general population. And they suggest that this might be because farmers are reluctant to admit mental health problems. Witnessing so much death among livestock might encourage them to take a more fatalistic view of their own life, they say.

They also point out that farmers have easy access to guns, poisons, and other means of committing suicide. And they call for further surveys to be conducted among farmers in the aftermath of the recent foot and mouth crisis.

British Medical Journal (BMJ)

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