Visitors of the Grand Chocolate Festival in Sofia have the chance to indulge their senses with the flavor and the wonderful taste of various sweet delights. However, some things in life are not that sweet. Sometimes sweetness gives way to despair and the feeling that you are not useful anymore and then some people start thinking of committing a suicide. We already got used to sensational headings in Bulgarian newspapers reading that someone puts an end of his life. On May 13 Bulgaria woke up with the news that three men from Bulgaria’s capital Sofia ended their lives in one night only. What is the real dynamics of the suicides? Does economic crisis influence suicides?

According to the book entitled Suicide Attempts in Bulgaria 2009-2013, written by Vladimir Nakov and Toni Donchev, the number of suicides in this country is similar to the average level in Europe and worldwide. From 2009 until 2012 the number of suicide attempts fluctuated from 2,700 to 3,190 per year. In Bulgaria the number of death cases caused by suicides exceeded the one caused by car accidents. There was a trend pointing to more suicide attempts and suicides in the abovementioned period. 5% -7% of the suicides were driven by a financial motif. Most suicides were due to conflicts in the social environment, i.e. with relatives, friends and family members, Dr. Vladimir Nakov from the Mental Health Section of the National Center of Public Health and Analyses specifies. What are the riskiest groups?

“People who suffer from psychological disorders and illnesses are most likely to commit suicide. This is the riskiest group, which includes people suffering from depression”, Dr Nakov points out. “The group consisting of young people aged between 18 and 35 is also under serious risk. A significant number of all death cases in this group are caused by suicides. The group consisting of elderly people aged 70 or above is also very risky. Almost all suicide attempts in this group end with death.”

Who is more vulnerable to suicide: the urban or the rural people?

“In 2012 and 2013 the number of the suicide attempts was higher in Bulgaria’s villages. This is so, because many rural people live alone, the infrastructure in these regions is bad, so is the quality of the medical services. With regard to the influence of the economic crisis over suicides, we should mention the fact that between 2009 and 2013 northwestern Bulgaria, which is the poorest region of this country and the whole EU, was not the region with highest number of suicides and suicide attempts”, Dr. Nakov further points out.

He also specified that in April 2013 Bulgaria adopted a National Suicide Prevention Program. However, the program only started functioning in December 2014. Vladimir Nakov provides more details about this program:

“One of the biggest public purposes of this project regards the training of Bulgarian general practitioners to identify depression and state of anxiety, which are the main reasons for suicides in this country. Some 2,000 GPs are to be trained how to find early symptoms of depression and start medical treatment if necessary, or send patients who suffer from depressions and anxiety to competent experts who will further decide whether they need to go under such treatment.”

Does Bulgaria have adequate mechanisms to prevent suicides now, when the program is making its first steps? What happens when people fail to commit suicide?

“Practically, there are no clinical paths to deal with this disease. We had a patient who already made one unsuccessful suicide attempt, but after he was discharged from toxicology, he jumped from a higher floor. The problem is that psychiatry merely does not exist in the multi-profile hospitals for active treatment” Doctor Vladimir Nakov finally contends.”

English version: Kostadin Atanasov