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The nation’s first suicide attempt data tracking system has found that women in 20s constituted the largest group among patients taken to emergency care after attempted suicide.

In addition, drug overdose was the most common means used by both male and female patients.

The Japanese Society for Emergency Medicine (JSEM) and other parties released a report compiling data gathered by the tracking system on nearly 2,000 cases in which patients were taken by ambulance to hospitals or emergency centers following attempted suicide or self-harm.

“I hope more medical institutions will participate in our program in the years to come, because access to more cases will allow us to analyze them by region and timeline,” said Yasufumi Miyake, a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine with the Teikyo University School of Medicine, who played a leading role in designing the system.

“I hope our efforts will, in the future, help provide assistance for those who have attempted suicide and help to develop suicide prevention measures,” he said.

The World Health Organization has been calling on countries to establish systems to collect and manage data on suicide attempts because previous suicide attempts are considered a key risk factor for suicide.

The health ministry’s White Paper on Suicide Prevention also shows that about 20 percent of people who commit suicide had already attempted to do so in the past.

However, Japan has not had a suicide attempt tracking system until recently.

The JSEM worked with the Japan Suicide Countermeasures Promotion Center (JSCP), a group authorized by the health minister, to create a system for registering cases in which patients were taken by ambulances to emergency rooms or critical care centers following attempts at suicide or self-harm.

The system, the first nationwide and ongoing program of its kind in Japan, began operating in 2022.

Fifty-seven of all 304 critical care centers in Japan were participating in the system as of December last year.

The latest report is a digest of the data collected over roughly the first year of the system’s operation.

According to the report, the cases of 1,987 individuals were registered in the system between December 2022 and December 2023.

The patients included 733 men, who made up about 37 percent of the cases, and 1,254 women, about 63 percent.

By age group, patients in their 20s accounted for the most cases at 570, or 28 percent of the total, followed by patients in their 30s at 334, or about 17 percent.

By both gender and age group, women in their 20s accounted for the largest number, at 398. Women more than doubled men among patients in their teens and 20s.

Drug overdose was the most common means of attempted suicide or self-harm. The method was used by 297 men, 40 percent of the male patients, and 858 women, 68 percent of the female patients.

After being taken to emergency centers, 1,571, or 79 percent of all the patients, were hospitalized, while 237 others, or 12 percent, returned home.

More than 70 percent of the patients went on to receive specialized care, including those who were referred to a psychiatric ward from the emergency department.

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