OBJECTIVE: To Describe and evaluate the incidence of suicides among individuals from the Associação dos Municípios da Região de Laguna (Amurel) (Association of the Counties of Laguna Region), in the period from 2001 to 2005. METHODS: Transversal study with data collection from the Legal Medical Institute (LMI) in Tubarão referring all deaths occurred between 2001 and 2005, which had a suicide as the cause of death. For all cases included in the study, the data was obtained from the LMI forms. RESULTS: The average age of the individuals in the search was 44 years old and the majority was of the male gender (79, 6%). Most of cases had no stable union (38, 8%) and used the hanging as the main method of suicide, representing 68,4% of the deaths. The most common occupations among the individuals who committed suicides were general service workers and farmers. The city with the highest incidence was Grão Pará with a coefficient of 20.2. CONCLUSION: It was observed that the incidence of the Amurel region is similar to the one found in Santa Catarina, which has a coefficient of 7,9. The main method of suicide was hanging, and the men committed four times more suicides than women.
Suicide; epidemiology; risk factors
