Abstract

Unnatural Deaths of the Chinese Government Officials

Author(s): Rui-Xing Yin, Feng Huang, Jin-Zhen Wu

Objectives

Government official is a special population. The causes of unnatural deaths in this special group are not yet clear. This study was to describe the epitome of unnatural deaths of the Chinese government officials.

Methods

The causes of 312 unnatural deaths of the Chinese government officials were retrospectively analyzed during an 11-year period from Aug. 2003 to Jul. 2014. There were 289 males (92.63%) and 23 females (7.37%). The ages of the victims ranged from 25 to 68 years, with an average age of 46.63 ± 8.04 years.

Results

The results showed that suicide, accidental deaths, homicide and sentenced to death accounted for 59.62%, 24.04% (P < 0.001 vs. suicide), 14.10% (P = 0.002 vs. accidental deaths), and 2.24% (P < 0.001 vs. homicide); respectively. The major methods of suicide were building jumping (55.37%), hanging (19.89%, P < 0.001 vs. building jumping), and swallowing pesticides (5.38%, P < 0.001 vs. hanging). The main causes of suicide were depression (32.26%), fear of punishment (16.66%, P = 0.001 vs. depression), debt-related dissension (5.38%, P = 0.001 vs. fear of punishment), other diseases (5.38%), family conflicts (4.30%), and heavy workload (4.30%). The dominant causes of accidental deaths were sudden death after a heavy drink (38.67%), traffic accidents (20.00%, P = 0.029 vs. sudden death after a heavy drink), and carbon monoxide poisoning in a car (17.33%, P > 0.05 vs. traffic accidents).

Conclusions

The results of the present study suggest that the most common causes of unnatural deaths are suicides and accidental deaths, and the major causes of suicides are depression and fear of punishment in the Chinese government officials.