Prevalence of Suicide Attempts among College Students in China: A Meta-Analysis

<div><p>Background</p><p>Suicide is the leading cause of death among 15–34 year olds in China, but no national data are available on the suicide and suicide attempts rates of college students, a sub-group of youth with 23 million. Several studies have reported the prevalence of suicide attempts among college students, however, no meta-analysis pooling the prevalence of suicide attempts is found.</p><p>Objective and Methods</p><p>This study aims to estimate the pooled prevalence of suicide attempts among college students in China. The relevant studies up to August 2014 were systematically searched via electronic databases (PubMed-Medline, Embase, Chinese Wanfang database, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure and Chinese VIP database). We only selected original articles that either reported the prevalence of suicide attempts or sufficient data for calculating the prevalence.</p><p>Results</p><p>A total of 29 eligible studies, with 88,225 college students, were finally included. The maximum and minimum reported prevalences of suicide attempts among college students in China were 0.4% and 10.5%, respectively. The pooled prevalence of suicide attempts was 2.8% (95%<i>CI</i>: 2.3%–3.3%). Subgroup analyses showed that the pooled estimate of prevalence of life time suicide attempts was 2.7% (95%<i>CI</i>: 2.1%–3.3%), and 12-month suicide attempts was 2.9% (95%<i>CI</i>: 2.0%–3.8%). The prevalence for males was 2.4% (95%<i>CI</i>: 1.8%–3.0%), and for females was 2.7% (95%<i>CI</i>: 1.9%–3.7%). The prevalences among college students in grade 1 through 4 were 2.8% (95%<i>CI</i>: 1.7%–3.8%), 1.8% (95%<i>CI</i>: 1.2%–2.3%), 2.0% (95%<i>CI</i>: 0.8%–3.1%), and 2.9% (95%<i>CI</i>: 0.1%–6.7%), respectively. The prevalences among college students from rural and urban areas were 5.1% (95%<i>CI</i>: 2.8%–7.5%) and 3.7% (95%<i>CI</i>: 1.4%–5.9%), respectively.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>2.8% prevalence of suicide attempts and more than 600,000 suicide attempters among college students indicate that suicide attempt among college students is an important public health problem in China. More attention should be paid to the current situation.</p></div

Key features of the included studies.

<p>Key features of the included studies.</p

The prevalence of suicide attempt in different subgroup of college students in China.

<p>The prevalence of suicide attempt in different subgroup of college students in China.</p

Flow diagram of assessment of studies identified in the meta-analysis.

<p>Flow diagram of assessment of studies identified in the meta-analysis.</p

A flow diagram for process for categorising events and assigning causality of adverse events following immunization in Anhui of China.

<p>A flow diagram for process for categorising events and assigning causality of adverse events following immunization in Anhui of China.</p

The reported rates of adverse events after immunization with measles containing vaccines in Anhui, China, 2009–2014.

<p>The reported rates of adverse events after immunization with measles containing vaccines in Anhui, China, 2009–2014.</p

The adverse events following measles containing vaccines (MCVs) in Anhui Province 2009–2014.

<p>The adverse events following measles containing vaccines (MCVs) in Anhui Province 2009–2014.</p

Serious AEFI in Anhui from 2009 through 2014.

<p>Serious AEFI in Anhui from 2009 through 2014.</p

Additional file 1: of Meta-analysis of GWAS on both Chinese and European populations identifies GPR173 as a novel X chromosome susceptibility gene for SLE

Table S1. Complete list of ChIP-seq files used in Intragenomic Replicates (IGR) analysis. Table S2. List of the 48 SNPs with association P value smaller than 1 × 10-4. Table S3. List of the candidate X-linked SLE susceptibility genes. Table S4. List of the 88 SNPs surpassing genome wide significance in L1CAM-MECP2 region. Table S5. Conditional logistic regression results in both Asian GWAS and European GWAS. Table S6. The list of SNVs used in Figure S3A. Figure S1. QQ plot for the cross-population X chromosome meta-analysis data. Figure S2. The LocusZoom Plot showing association significance and local LD for the region around rs13440883 (±200kb). Figure S3. Identification of functional risk-associated SNV shared between Europeans and Asians. Figure S4. LD patterns of the risk-associated SNPs in L1CAM-MECP2 region. (PDF 2421 kb

Genotype characteristics of each single nucleotide polymorphism.

<p>MAF, minor allele frequency; 95% CI, 95% confidence intervals; HWE, Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium.</p>a<p>nor allele/major allele;</p>b<p>P-value for HWE.</p