Madrid (EFE) which represents an increase of 12 percent compared to 2021.
The provisional data published this Tuesday by the INE in its Deaths by Cause of Death Statistics are still provisional, but confirm the upward trend in suicides in recent years, which have gone from 3,539 in 2018 to 3,671 in 2019; 3,941 in 2020 and 4,003 in 2021 and 4,097 last year.
In total, in 2022 there were 18,330 deaths due to external causes, 1,499 more than in the previous year (8.9%), and they were the majority among men, with 11,551 deaths for these reasons (8.1% more). although the increase was greater in women (6,779, 10.4% more).
260 people resorted to euthanasia
From May to August, when the INE detected a 20.5% increase in deaths from natural causes, there were 6,745 deaths due to external reasons, representing 877 more deaths and an increase of 14.9%.
The cause that registered the highest peak was accidental drowning, submersion and suffocation, in which case it shot up 17.1% to reach 4,102 deaths compared to 3,504 a year earlier.
Deaths from accidental falls also increased (with 3,707 deaths, 1.4% more) and traffic accidents (1,790 deaths, 11.9% more).
The INE also collects the figures for euthanasia: in 2022, the second year the law was in force, doctors reported on medical death certificates that 260 people ended their lives with this procedure, of which 134 were men and 126 women. 78.1% were over 60 years of age.
Diseases of the nervous system were the most frequent causes among people who underwent euthanasia, with 117 cases.
Within this group, 41.9% had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), 11.1% multiple sclerosis, and 8.5% parkinson’s. The mean age of those who died from these three causes was 63.4 years, 59.5 years and 79.2 years, respectively.
Following behind, cancer was the disease of 74 people who received assistance in dying in 2022, who had an average age of 71.2 years.
