23 percent of Japanese seriously considered committing suicide

A Japanese government survey on Tuesday showed that 23.6 pct of respondents said they have seriously considered committing suicide, almost unchanged from 23.4 pct in the previous survey taken in 2012.

The survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry also said 4.5 pct of the total respondents considered killing themselves in the past year, down slightly from 5.3 pct in the previous survey.

In Japan, the annual number of suicides has dropped for the seventh consecutive year.

Many people who considered committing suicide have stopped short of putting their thought into action, a ministry official said, adding that measures to prevent suicide seem to have shown some effects.

Source: Jiji
Image: ANN