Rev Psiquiatr Salud Ment (Barc.). 2017;10(2):70---77 www.elsevier.es/saludmental ORIGINAL ARTICLE Suicide, unemployment, and economic recession in Spain  Celso Iglesias-García a,b,c,d,* , Pilar A. Sáiz a,b,c,d , Patricia Burón b,c , Fernando Sánchez-Lasheras e , Luis Jiménez-Trevi˜ no a,b,c,d , Sergio Fernández-Artamendi b,c,d , Susana Al-Halabí b,c , Paul Corcoran f , M. Paz García-Portilla a,b,c,d , Julio Bobes a,b,c,d a Departamento de Psiquiatría, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain b Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental, CIBERSAM, Spain c Instituto Universitario de Neurociencias del Principado de Asturias, INEUROPA, Oviedo, Spain d Servicio de Salud del Principado de Asturias, SESPA, Asturias, Spain e Departamento de Construcción e Ingeniería de Fabricación, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain f National Suicide Research Foundation, Cork, Ireland Received 5 January 2016; accepted 28 April 2016 Available online 4 April 2017 KEYWORDS Economic recession; Epidemiology; Spain; Suicide; Unemployment Abstract Introduction: The aim of the present work is to determine the association between unemploy- ment and suicide, and to investigate whether this association is affected by changes in the economic cycle or other variables such as age and sex. Methods: A time-trend analysis was conducted to study changes in the number of suicides between 1999 and 2013 in Spain. Pearson’s correlation coefficients and regression models were used to find the association between unemployment and suicide. Results: A significant positive association was found between unemployment and suicide in the pre-crisis period in men. In that period (1999---2007), each 1% annual increase in unemployment was associated with a 6.90% increase in the annual variation of suicide in the total population, and with a 9.04% increase in the annual variation of suicide in working age men. Conclusions: The correlation between unemployment and suicide is significant in periods of economic stability, but has weakened during the recent financial crisis. Unemployment and suicide have a complex relationship modulated by age, sex and economic cycle. © 2017 SEP y SEPB. Published by Elsevier Espa˜ na, S.L.U. All rights reserved.  Please cite this article as: Iglesias-García C, Sáiz PA, Burón P, Sánchez-Lasheras F, Jiménez-Trevi˜ no L, Fernández-Artamendi S, et al. Suicidio, desempleo y recesión económica en Espa˜ na. Rev Psiquiatr Salud Ment (Barc). 2017;10:70---77 ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: icelso@yahoo.es (C. Iglesias-García). 2173-5050/© 2017 SEP y SEPB. Published by Elsevier Espa˜ na, S.L.U. All rights reserved.