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Suicide rates hold steady amidst pandemic, experts see uptick in mental illness

South Bend Tribune - 12/31/2020

Dec. 31—Since the arrival of the pandemic, including the stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines, anxiety and depression have become more and more prevalent across the country, leading some experts to worry about a rise in suicides.

Though local mental health professionals and suicide prevention workers say they've seen signs the pandemic is straining people's mental health, suicides in St. Joseph and Elkhart counties don't appear to be increasing.

Last year saw 40 reported suicides in St. Joseph County with 41 reported in 2018 and 37 in 2017, according to data from the county coroner's office. Through the end of November this year, there have been 37 reported suicides in St. Joseph County.

In Elkhart County, there have been 19 reported suicides through November, per the coroner's office. Last year, the county saw 31 suicides, while there were 23 in 2018 and 30 in 2017.

While suicide prevention specialists are glad suicides haven't spiked, they're not sure exactly why the numbers are even compared to year's past, given the upheaval caused by COVID-19.

"I don't know; I don't have a good answer for you," said Kent Laudeman, director of the St. Joseph County Suicide Prevention Center, when asked why suicides have decreased during the pandemic. "I'm just glad that the numbers aren't any bigger than they are, and I hold my breath that they're not going to go higher."

Laudeman hypothesized that with national attention fixated on COVID-19, people may be less focused on their internal struggles. He also noted that suicide rates sometimes drop immediately following a traumatic event, like they did in the wake of 9/11. Suicides in the New Orleans area also dropped in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but rose sharply a few years later.

"With everything that's coming with COVID, be it health, be it financial, be it unemployment and everything like that, maybe it has diverted people's attention just a bit," he said.

Barb Welty, a spokeswoman for the Elkhart County Suicide Prevention Coalition, said another possible theory is that the widespread adverse effects of coronavirus have made people more willing to talk about mental health and seek treatment.

The pandemic has also spurred people to reach out to family and friends. When people make an increased effort to connect with loved ones, which usually happens around the holidays, suicide rates can go down, Welty said.

"Part of the reason suicides are lower over the holidays is because that's the one time of the year when we tend to reach out to family and friends, and I think we've seen some of that during the pandemic," Welty said. "We're recognizing that our elderly are isolated and we're working to figure out ways to make those connections."

However, as the pandemic continues to disrupt daily life, Welty and Laudeman both worry that suicides could spike before a vaccine allows for more physical interactions.

"I think it's a hammer waiting to drop," Laudeman said.

Nationally, the suicide rate in the United States has risen more than 30% since 1999, though newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the number of suicides nationally went down in 2019 for the first time in two decades.

Along with the CDC data, officials from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention said the limited data during the pandemic does not show an increase in suicides.

While the full effect of the pandemic on the national suicide rate will likely not be known until a few years later, the pandemic has adversely impacted mental health.

A CDC survey published in August estimates 40% of respondents are dealing with at least one "adverse mental health symptom." Nearly 12% across all ages groups said they had considered suicide in the last month.

Local mental health providers have had their hands full during the pandemic, said Dr. Suhayl Nasr, who works in inpatient psychiatric care at Epworth Hospital and serves as the medical director of psychiatric services for Beacon Health System.

"There's been a tremendous increase in demand for inpatient, outpatient care," Nasr said. "People are coming in with a lot of anxiety, depression; substance abuse has increased a lot."

Nasr said Epworth has seen both an increase in the amount of patients and inpatients with severe illnesses; a sign the pandemic has potentially exacerbated already-present mental illnesses in some people.

The pandemic "didn't just suddenly change who you were, but whatever somebody had in February, you add on to it all the COVID anxiety, isolation and loneliness, and it magnifies," he said.

Like Laudeman and Welty, Nasr believes the long-term mental health effects of the pandemic will be felt long after the vaccine becomes widely available.

"There is a lot of trauma that will be dealt with once the acuteness of the situation is over," he said. "I think we haven't seen the end of it yet."

mmazurek@sbtinfo.com

574-235-6234

@marek_mazurek

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