Malaysian poisoning reports diverged from suicide mortality during pandemic

Researchers examined whether near-real-time reports of non-fatal intentional poisoning could supplement Malaysian suicide mortality statistics, which have a reported one- to two-year reporting delay. The ecological time-series study, published in BMC Public Health, analyzed aggregated National Poison Centre and Department of Statistics Malaysia data from 2006 to 2021. Analyses included Spearman correlations and an autoregressive model intended to address longitudinal autocorrelation.

The overall correlation between poisoning reports and suicide mortality was weak (Spearman r=0.182). Between 2019 and 2021, reported non-fatal intentional poisonings decreased from 1,212 to 857 cases, a 29.2% decline, while official suicide fatalities increased 85.7%. The authors reported a stronger correlation in the age-group distribution analysis for people aged 20–39 years (r=0.826).

These findings suggest poisoning surveillance should not be treated as a direct proxy for overall suicide mortality. The authors hypothesize that the divergence reflects a shift toward more lethal methods, but aggregated ecological data cannot establish individual changes in method or intent. Poison-centre data also do not capture all suicide methods. Although the authors propose integrating toxicovigilance into psychiatric surveillance, the supplied results do not establish its sensitivity or cost-effectiveness. Funding included Universiti Sains Malaysia support and an industrial grant from ERALAB Sdn. Bhd.; the authors declared no competing interests.