Annual Report 2022

View the Queensland Suicide Register's annual report for 2022:

History of the QSR

Data collection for this project began with the former Suicide Research and Prevention Program of Queensland Health, which was established in the late 1980s (Baume, Cantor & McTaggart, 1998). Queensland Health staff ran the register and it was called the Register of the Suicide Research and Prevention Program. Its name changed to the Queensland Suicide Register in 1994.

It moved to the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP) when AISRAP was established in 1996, and was run out Griffith University's Belmont Private Hospital Campus. The register was the fundamental part of AISRAP's activities at that time. One of the goals of the Queensland Health Suicide Research Project initiated by Queensland Health and Griffith University was to maintain a register on all suicides in Queensland (Baume, Cantor & McTaggart, 1998).

The register then moved to Griffith University's Nathan Campus in 1997. The QSR moved to Griffith University's Mt Gravatt Campus in 2001, where it operates today.

References: Baume, P. J. M., Cantor, C. H., & McTaggart, P. G. (1998). Suicides in Queensland: a comprehensive study; 1990-1995 (pp. 1–61). Brisbane, Queensland: Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention.

Current project staff

Principal researcher: Professor Kairi Kõlves

Research assistants: Ms Amra Catakovic, Ms Aarthi Ganapathy, Ms Sadhvi Krishnamoorthy, and Ms Linda Zhong

Evaluation of the QSR

The QSR was evaluated against a psychological autopsy (PA) interview method in a quality control study in the 2012 report. The PA interview is performed by a clinical interviewer with the deceased’s next-of-kin and represents an in-depth assessment of the circumstance of a suicide 6 to 24 months after the death. The average duration of a PA interview is 2 hours and covers the following: demographics, recent life events, history of suicidal behaviour, medical history, and psychiatric illness as assessed via the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Disorders (SCID) (Spitzer et al., 1994)

The description and findings of the evaluation are in Section 1.6 Quality of the QSR data, on pages 23-26 of De Leo, D., & Sveticic, J. (2012). Suicide in Queensland, 2005-2007: Mortality Rates and Related Data (pp. 1–102). Mount Gravatt, Queensland: Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, Griffith University.

References:

First, M. B., Spitzer, R. L., Gibbon, M., & Williams, J. B. (1994). Structured clinical interview for Axis I DSM-IV disorders. New York: Biometrics Research.

Contact us

For enquiries about the QSR please email us

For QSR data requests please email us