Suicide among Scottish military veterans

In September 2021, the UK Government announced that for the first time the numbers of ex-service personnel who take their own lives will be officially recorded, alongside a 10-year look-back to examine veteran deaths through suicide.1 This followed an agreement between the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Office for National Statistics. The paper in this Journal by Beverly Bergman and colleagues,2 Suicide Among Scottish Military Veterans, is therefore timely and significantly advances our knowledge of suicide among veterans. It builds on an earlier paper from the same group published in 2017 reporting their 30-year retrospective cohort study.3 The current study has three very important findings. First, that overall, veteran suicide is not frequent and no more so than the non-veteran community. Second, veteran suicide peaks in midlife. Third, that the incidence for veteran suicide is highest almost...
Source: Occupational and Environmental Medicine - Category: Occupational Health Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research