Association between food consumption and attempted suicide in rural areas of Shandong Province

Objective: To examine whether food consumption was associated with attempted suicide in rural population of Shandong Province.Methods: Suicide attempters in rural areas of five counties, Zoucheng, Junan, Zhangqiu, Xintai and Yishui in Shandong Province were selected as the case group, and residents from the same or neighboring villages who were matched in gender and age (±3 years) were contemporaneously selected as the control group, with 132 cases in each group.Face-to-face and one-on-one interviews and questionnaires were used to collect relevant information of the participants.Multivariate conditional logistic analysis was used to as-sess the association between food consumption and attempted suicide.Results: The median age of participants was 40 years old(31-46 years old), and 63.6%were women in both groups.Compared with the control group, sui-cide attempters had lower individual annual income or more physical illnesses and mental disorders (P< 0.05).Univariate analysis showed the consumption of fruit and tea was associated with attempted suicide (P< 0.05), while seafood, red meat, and soy product consumption weren’t(P> 0.05).After adjusting for factors such as marital status, occupation, individual annual income, physical diseases, mental disorders and other food consump-tion, fruit consumption ≥3 d per week was a protective factor for attempted suicide (OR=0.37, 95% CI: 0.15-0.92), while tea, seafood, red meat, and soy product consumption were not associated with attempted suicide(P> 0.05).Conclusion: Fruit consumption ≥3 d per week is a protective factor for attempted suicide, while tea, sea-food, red meat, and soy product consumption are not associated with attempted suicide in this study.