Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Moon and suicide: a true effect or a false-positive finding?

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Ioannidis JPA. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005;2:e124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Forstmeier W, Wagenmakers E-J, Parker TH. Detecting and avoiding likely false-positive findings – a practical guide: avoiding false-positive findings. Biol Rev. 2017;92:1941–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Tajika A, Ogawa Y, Takeshima N, Hayasaka Y, Furukawa TA. Replication and contradiction of highly cited research papers in psychiatry: 10-year follow-up. Br J Psychiatry. 2015;207:357–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Meyer-Rochow VB, Hakko T, Hakko H, Riipinen P, Timonen M. Synodic lunar phases and suicide: based on 2605 suicides over 23 years, a full moon peak is apparent in premenopausal women from northern Finland. Mol Psychiatry. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-020-0768-7.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Simmons JP, Nelson LD, Simonsohn U. False-positive psychology: undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychol Sci. 2011;22:1359–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin Plöderl.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Plöderl, M., Hengartner, M.P. Moon and suicide: a true effect or a false-positive finding?. Mol Psychiatry 26, 4564–4565 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-020-00942-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-020-00942-w

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links