Prevalence and Association of Suicide Ideation among Taiwanese Elderly – A Populationbased Cross-sectional Study

Background: Elders commit suicide almost twice as frequently as people in the generalpopulation. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and associatedfactors of suicide ideation among a representative sample of elderly peoplein Taiwan.Methods: We used data from the Health Promotion Knowledge, Attitudes, andPerformance Survey in Taiwan and focused on 3,853 subjects with over 65years old. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to comparesubjects with and without suicide ideation in terms of their subjectcharacteristics, smoking, disability, depressive symptoms, physical disorders,and pain symptoms.Results: The point prevalence of elderly suicidal ideation was 6.1%. Female gender,age over 85 years, low level of of education, single status, unemployment.no income, disability, current smoking, self-perceived bad to very bad health,depressive symptoms, various physical disorders (heart disease, diabetes,asthma, osteoporosis), and pain symptoms (joint pain, lower back pain, neckpain, sciatica, headache) were strongly associated with suicide ideation.Multivariate analyses showed that the female gender, former smoker, noincome, depressive symptoms, and heart disease were the predictors of elderlysuicide ideation.Conclusion: Elderly subjects who are women, or former smokers, and have depressivesymptoms, heart disease or no income should be cautioned about the risk ofsuicide.