title: [Religion and suicide - part 2: confessions, religiousness, secularisation and national suicide rates].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  National suicide rates differ remarkably. The influence of religion on the frequency of suicides was already stressed by Durkheim, however, character and dimension of this influence are still unclear. Our study claims to assess the association between (a) the distribution of believers of different religions, (b) the secularization, (c) the religiousness and the national suicide rates by gender.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data of the distribution of religious confessions and of the religiousness of the inhabitants of the single countries were correlated with the national suicide rates and illustrated by means of Scatter/Dot-Plots.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Independent of gender, low suicide rates were found in Islamic countries. Buddhist countries showed high suicide rates in women, and countries with a high percentage of inhabitants without confession high suicide rates in men. Only catholic countries showed an association between secularisation and suicide rates. In countries with a high proportion of religious inhabitants we found low suicide rates.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although none of the World religions support the human right of suicide, the mosaic religions of resurrection refuse suicide more strictly than the Eastern religions of reincarnation. All in all our study supports the hypothesis that religiousness can be seen as a protective factor against suicide.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Suchtdiagnostik, Wien. kristina.ritter@chello.at
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ritter
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zitterl
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stompe
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012067:Religion; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D035621:Secularism; D012922:Social Change; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data