Our group of female collaborators who represent national psychiatric communities, International Association of Women’s Mental Health, European Depression Association, and World Psychiatric Association (Women’s Mental Health Section), managed a Symposium titled “SUICIDALITY IN EUROPEAN WOMEN: FINDING STRENGTHS TO OVERCOME UNCERTAIN TIMES TOGETHER” during the 23rd WPA World Congress of Psychiatry taken place on September 28th – October1st 2023, Vienna, Austria.
Chairpersons of the symposium Prof. Florence Thibaut (France) and Assoc. Prof. Daria Smirnova (Russia) supervised the program including four challenging topics:
- “Death is a supple suitor”: The overlooked impact of suicidality in women
- Xenia Gonda, Budapest, Hungary;
2) Prevalence of suicidal behaviours and its correlates in women living in European countries: based on epidemiological studies
- Jelena Vrublevska, Riga, Latvia;
3) Modelling suicidality risks in female populations and understanding the phenomenon of suicidality via pandemic context – Daria Smirnova, Samara, Russia;
4) Depression, suicides and conspiracy theories in female populations – A cultural crossroads matrix
- Anca-Livia Panfil, Timisoara, Romania
The symposium focused on the aims of promoting gender-sensitive health services for women with suicidal experiences, based on current findings in social psychiatry, psychiatric epidemiology, and lessons learnt about psychosocial stressors arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in European countries.
Suicides account for 71% of intentional violent deaths in women compared to 50% in men, females are 2-3 times more likely to attend hospital following a suicidal act, and women are also highly overrepresented in all forms of suicidal behaviour, including also ideation and attempts, which should be taken into account within the accurate understanding of the complex phenomenon of suicidality.
The talks discovered key findings of international multicentre projects organised by the representatives of World Psychiatric Association (COMET-G study), International Association of Women’s Mental Health (IAWMH), European Depression Association (EDA) and national psychiatric communities, focusing on the gender gap and gender paradox in suicidal behaviour, discussing specific and differential aspects of suicide in women, as well as female-specific risk and protective factors based on the data from European countries. Theories and explanations for the gender specificity in suicidal behaviours, prevalence rates of suicides in women living in European countries, understanding suicidality phenomenon via pandemic context, suicidality correlates with depression and conspiracy beliefs existing in European cross-cultural matrix of values and diversities, have been reviewed.
To conclude, our international team formulated actionable resolutions of key recommendations for recognising and screening of suicide risks in women, as well as treatment and prevention strategies for protecting and improving women’s mental health.
