Background Increasing knowledge on suicide prevention has been shown to be important for suicide prevention. This paper exams the accomplishment of research on suicide and examine how those research activities contribute to the change of suicide rates. Methods Data of the publications relating to suicide from 1990 to 2018 were retrieved from the Web of Science and Scopus. Bibliographic information was analyzed and the relationships between suicide rates with the number of publications per million population and the average article citations per year were examined. Results From 1990 to 2018, globally, publications on suicide have increased significantly. The United States (“USA”) had the greatest number of publications. Research collaborations among different countries/regions have been flourishing and multinational centers have become more common than ever. Nonetheless, in some countries/regions with high rates of suicide, suicide research was scarce. It was found that the number of publications per million population and the average article citations per year were negatively correlated with the suicide rates at the global level (r = – 0.96, p < 0.001; r = -0.91, p < 0.001, respectively), but not in the higher SDI regions (r = -0.05, p = 0.81; r = 0.02, p = 0.91, respectively). Furthermore, research focusing on suicide intervention was also relatively limited. Limitation The origins of the publications were only based on the corresponding authors’ regions. Conclusions There is significant imbalance in the amount of research effort especially in the regions with high suicide rates. In the higher socioeconomic level regions, the quantity and quality of publications sometimes do not transpire in the reduction of suicide rates. A better connection between the fundamental and practical suicide research should be established. More resources should be made available to the low- and middle-income countries/regions with higher suicide risks, then the effect of suicide prevention might be much more significant.

Introduction

Suicide is a serious global burden of disease. According to the report of the World Health Organization(“WHO”), more than 800,000 people died from suicide every year, and, alarmingly, it was the second leading cause of death in young people aged 15-29 (World Health Organization, 2018). Furthermore, 79% suicides occurred in the low- and middle-income countries where mental health resources are often scarce (World Health Organization, 2018; Yip, 2012). Even though globally, from 1990 to 2016, the age-standardized mortality rate for suicide has decreased by 32.7%, this decline was not witnessed in central Latin America, high income Asia Pacific, western sub-Saharan Africa, and eastern Europe (Naghavi, 2019). Reducing the rates of suicide has become one of the 17 sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations (“Sustainable Development Goals”). Valuable human capital to society has been lost in suicide and it has also created a non-insignificant impact on life expectancy (Law et al., 2010). Its negative impact has also spread to family members, friends, acquaintances, healthcare professionals, and local communities, thus, the impact of suicide is devastating and far-reaching (Cerel et al., 2019; Pitman et al., 2014). Improving and enhancing the understanding of suicidal behavior is of great importance and relevance to reduce the suicide rate worldwide. At present, there is a serious mismatch of the availability of resources at a country and global level on suicide prevention.