Samomori med osebami, zbolelimi za levkemijo v otroštvu, v Sloveniji

Persons with childhood leukaemia often suffer from physical and psychosocial consequences of the disease and its treatment. Several studies have shown that depression and suicidal behaviour are expressed strongly in persons with a childhood cancer experience. In our study, we researched the occurrence of suicides among persons with childhood leukaemia compared to the general population in Slovenia in the period 1978–2010. The expected number of suicides was calculated based on the control group of individuals from the general population with the same gender, age at the beginning of observation, starting year and duration of observation as the research group, thus group of persons with childhood cancer. The study showed that none of the persons with childhood cancer committed suicide in the period 1978-2010, which is not statistically different from the expected number of suicides (0.448) in comparison with the general population in Slovenia. The findings of this study indicate that, despite the significantly increased expression of suicidal behaviour among survivors of childhood leukaemia in Slovenia compared to the general population, suicides do not occur more often among people with childhood leukaemia than among the general population.