Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis and suicide in Bangladesh: Some explanations through Durkheim’s Sociology of Suicide

Abstract

Whilst the world is experiencing an unprecedented and devastating public health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars have apprehended that economic, social and mental health consequences brought by the pandemic might intensify suicidality amongst people. At this backdrop, this content analysis traces the relationship between suicidality and the COVID-19 pandemic employing Emile Durkheim’s classical theoretical postulation of the sociology of suicide in the context of Bangladesh. The analysis is based on case reports identified through online newspaper search spanning from January 01 to May 15, 2020. During this period, 10 Covid-19 induced suicide cases were identified. The analysis of the findings captures the linkages between COVID-19 crisis and suicidal behavior according to Durkheim’s four-fold typology of the social causation of suicide. The identified cases were fit into egoistic (2), anomic (5) and fatalistic (3) categories. No case was relevant to the altruistic category. As there is no national suicide prevention strategy in Bangladesh, this analysis highlights several immediate and short prevention strategies. Furthermore, this analysis contributes to our sociological understanding that Durkheim’s macro-level theory has the potentials to analyze micro-level/case-based suicide incidents.