http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061005/hl ... lthsuicide
Russia suicide rate world's second highest Thu Oct 5, 1:17 PM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's suicide rate of some 60,000 lives claimed every year is the world's second highest, leaving only Lithuania ahead, the director of Russia's Serbsky Center of Social and Legal Psychiatry said as quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency.
"Every year 60,000 people take their lives in Russia, if one takes the annual average for the past 12 years," Tatyana Dmitriyeva told reporters Wednesday, adding that 20 percent of suicides suffered from grave psychiatric problems.
The most endangered group were adults aged 45-55 and adolescents, Dmitriyeva said, explaining that the leading reasons for suicide were biological predisposition, social upheavals, inflation, and stress linked to family conflicts, divorces and loneliness.