Suicide Research Articles

Child and adolescent suicide: Facts, assessment and preventive strategies

Suicide, act of killing oneself or self murder, is the 10th leading cause of death worldwide. It resulted in 828,000 global deaths in the year 2015 with an increase from 712,000 deaths in 1990. Important factors, affecting suicide, include psychiatric disorders, drug use, cultural, family and social situations, psychological states, and genetics. Half of all adult suicide was found to have diagnosable major psychiatric disorder. Major depressive disorder, bipolar mood disorder increase the risk of suicide by 20-fold. Other disorders include schizophrenia (14%), personality disorders (8%), obsessive compulsive disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Suicide Ideation Detection on Social Networks: Short Literature Review

Social networking platforms will be a tool for people to share their positive and negative emotions. Suicide ideation detection is one of the important fields in social network analysis. Exploiting the data published on social networking platforms will help to prevent suicide and reduce the rate of suicide in the world. The purpose of this study is to review the effects of using social networking platforms to identify and categorize suicidal ideation. In addition to presenting the most popular methods used in computer science to discern between suicide notes and non-suicide notes.

Physician-Assisted Suicide, the Right to Die, and Misconceptions About Life

Abstract In this paper, we analyze the legal situation regarding physician-assisted suicide in the world. Our hypothesis is that the prohibitive stance on physician-assisted suicide in most societies in the world today seems to be related to our moral attitudes toward suicide. This brings us to a discussion about life itself. We claim that the total lack of legal protection for physician-assisted suicide from international organizations and most countries in the world lies in a philosophical assumption that supports much of our common beliefs about what life really is. This assumption states that life must be thought of as not belonging exclusively to the individual. We argue that this assumption is a misconception that can be heard in the debate on suicide. Consequently we endorse a different conception of life which tends to favor a pro-choice stance towards suicide and assisted death in general. This position takes the patient’s decision about when to die more seriously. We conclude that there is no reason why physician-assisted suicide does not deserve legal protection as an individual right to die under international law.

The Correlation between Perceived Social Support with Suicide Ideation

Background: Based on data from WHO in 2015, it shows that the death rate due to suicide in the world was recorded to have increased by 23.2% compared to 2009. Research in 2016 shows that the largest age range who experienced suicide was from 15-29 years. Many things are predicted to be a protective factor against suicide, including social support. Research on suicide protection factors is useful in preventing the increasing number of suicides.Objective: To analyze the correlation between perceived social support with suicidal ideationMethods: This research is a quantitative study with cross sectional design. Samples were taken from vocational school and academy in Semarang, who met the inclusion and exclusion criterias. The sample selection was carried out by the simple random sampling method. This research used the Indonesian version of the SSI (Scale of Suicide Ideation) and the MSPSS (Multidimentional Scale of Perceived Social Support) questionnaires.Results: It was found that the prevalence of high suicidal ideation score was 50.8% while the low suicidal ideation score was 49.2%. There was a significant correlation between suicidal ideation with perceived of family support (p = 0.002) and peer support (p = 0.050). Meanwhile, there was no significant correlation between the suicidal ideation and the support from significant others (p = 0.154). Conclusion: There was a correlation between perceived of family and peer support with suicidal ideation

Suicide and Self-Harm Outcomes Among Psychiatric Emergency Service Patients Diagnosed As Malingering.

Malingering is a common and challenging clinical presentation in emergency departments (EDs). This study describes characteristics and outcomes among patients diagnosed as malingering in a psychiatric emergency service. Index psychiatric ED encounters were identified for all adult patients seen during a 27-month period. Mortality data were obtained for patients from the state public health authority, and repeat ED visits for self-harm were obtained from the state hospital association. Patients with a diagnosis of malingering were compared with those without a malingering diagnosis using correlative statistics and multivariable analyses. Of 4710 encounters analyzed, 236 (5%) had a malingering diagnosis. No patients diagnosed as malingering died of suicide within 365 days of discharge, compared with 16 (0.4%) nonmalingering patients. Self-harm outcomes were available for 2689 encounters; 129 (5%) had a malingering diagnosis. Malingering was significantly associated with a repeat ED visit for self-harm within 365 days in multivariable analyses (adjusted odds ratio 2.52; 95% confidence interval 1.35-4.70); p < 0.01). No psychiatric emergency service patients diagnosed as malingering died by suicide after discharge. New clinical approaches must balance malingering patients' apparent low suicide risk with their other substantial comorbidities and risk for self-harm.

Mental Health Issues in the COVID-19 Pandemic and Responses in Bangladesh: View Point of Media Reporting.

Background: The negative impact of COVID-19 on mental health has been reported by media throughout the world, although this role is not well-understood in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). We examined the reporting of mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh and initiatives undertaken to support mental health reported from the viewpoint of media.Methods: We reviewed articles published in 10 local newspapers, including seven Bangla and three English newspapers, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. News topics were identified through discussions among the team members, with searches across online newspapers and portals. Data extrapolated from newspapers were documented in an Excel spreadsheet. A mixed-method approach was used following a framework analysis for analyzing data. Recurring issues and commonly emerging topics were generated from the data. Descriptive statistics were applied for analyzing quantitative data.Results: Between March 2020 and March 2021, we have identified 201 reports on mental health issues including 45 reports (22.4%) focused on stress due to the associated financial crisis, unemployment and loneliness, 50 reports (24.9%) of 80 apparent suicides linked to family issues, disharmony in conjugal relationships, harassment, sexual violence, emotional breakdown, financial crisis, and stigma due to COVID-19.There were 77 reports (38.3%) concerning domestic violence during the pandemic. Twenty-nine reports (14.4%) referenced actions taken by different organizations to address mental health issues in response to the pandemic in Bangladesh.Conclusion: News coverage has the scope to highlight important issues that can emerge as a consequence of the COVID-pandemic, such as mental health, in a low resource setting. Capacity building of the media on the way to report mental health issues during emergency situations could be a useful strategy for more credible reporting on mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic for raising awareness of the public and policymakers about the negative consequences on mental health of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. Adopting policies to support essential mental health care and promoting the local organizations to take timely public health measures will be imperative for averting the negative consequences of mental health due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh.

“In the Moment I Wanted to Kill Myself, and Then After I Didn’t”: A Qualitative Investigation of Suicide Planning, Method Choice, and Method Substitution Among Adolescents Hospitalized Following a Suicide Attempt

Research on planning, method choice, and method substitution in adolescents’ suicide attempts is limited. We conducted in-depth interviews with 20 adolescents following their suicide attempt to learn the extent to which the attempt was planned, why they used the method they did, and whether they would have substituted another method if the one they used had been unavailable. Applied Thematic Analysis was used to identify codes and develop themes. Attempts were largely unplanned, and planned attempts were often haphazard, as urgency to escape immediate pain was a main impetus for the attempt. Method choice was driven by easy access. Half of participants said they would not have attempted suicide if the method they used were inaccessible, but 7 of 20 said they would have, and 3 were unsure. Not all suicide attempts would be prevented by blocking access to methods that adolescent attempters would otherwise use. To understand whether restricting access to low-lethality methods could harm some attempters, future research should examine in-the-moment method substitution.

CURRENT SUICIDAL SITUATIONS WITHIN THE ROMANIAN AREA

This article has been focussed on presentation of an older sociological issue – committing suicide /killing oneself – within new interpretative contexts specific to current Romanian society. The argumentation is therefore developed towards attracting three sustainable conclusions: a. right to property over one’s own body should not metamorphose into individual’s right to kill himself; b) no matter how many logical arguments we might have for committing suicide as a normal fact, it will naturally remain a pathological social fact; c. social actions against suiciding cannot otherwise be but ante factum. Consequently, social actors should be informed and get awareness on suicidal risk factors within the environment they are living in. This last aspect shall occupy the most part of the pages of this article. The conclusion of the whole approach is that no matter how many justifications, excuses and mitigating circumstances we may find, the suicidal act cannot be otherwise but traumatising and condemnable to society.

Depression Detection on Reddit With an Emotion-Based Attention Network: Algorithm Development and Validation.

BackgroundAs a common mental disease, depression seriously affects people’s physical and mental health. According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, depression is one of the main reasons for suicide and self-harm events in the world. Therefore, strengthening depression detection can effectively reduce the occurrence of suicide or self-harm events so as to save more people and families. With the development of computer technology, some researchers are trying to apply natural language processing techniques to detect people who are depressed automatically. Many existing feature engineering methods for depression detection are based on emotional characteristics, but these methods do not consider high-level emotional semantic information. The current deep learning methods for depression detection cannot accurately extract effective emotional semantic information.ObjectiveIn this paper, we propose an emotion-based attention network, including a semantic understanding network and an emotion understanding network, which can capture the high-level emotional semantic information effectively to improve the depression detection task.MethodsThe semantic understanding network module is used to capture the contextual semantic information. The emotion understanding network module is used to capture the emotional semantic information. There are two units in the emotion understanding network module, including a positive emotion understanding unit and a negative emotion understanding unit, which are used to capture the positive emotional information and the negative emotional information, respectively. We further proposed a dynamic fusion strategy in the emotion understanding network module to fuse the positive emotional information and the negative emotional information.ResultsWe evaluated our method on the Reddit data set. The experimental results showed that the proposed emotion-based attention network model achieved an accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure of 91.30%, 91.91%, 96.15%, and 93.98%, respectively, which are comparable results compared with state-of-the-art methods.ConclusionsThe experimental results showed that our model is competitive with the state-of-the-art models. The semantic understanding network module, the emotion understanding network module, and the dynamic fusion strategy are effective modules for depression detection. In addition, the experimental results verified that the emotional semantic information was effective in depression detection.

Post-Mortem Forensic Analysis of Suicidal Cases

Introduction: Suicide is the act of intentionally killing oneself by using various methods. Hanging is a very common method of suicide worldwide. The rate of suicide cases by hanging is increasing daily in Bangladesh. Suicide by hanging means killing oneself intentionally by suspending themselves from an anchor point by a ligature or by jumping from a height with a noose around the neck. As hanging is a simple method that does not require any complicated techniques, and the materials are also easy to come by, many choose this as their suicide method. Aim of the study: The objective of this study was to observe the demography of hanging cases, its distribution according to age group, sex, common ligature materials used by victims, observe post mortem findings and in this way, try to identify the causes and develop the preventive measures that are essential to reduce death due to hanging. Methods: This was a retrospective study done on the basis of the 3rd copies of postmortem reports preserved in the department of Forensic Medicine, Rajshahi Medical College, Rajshahi, Bangladesh for the period of 2 years with proper permission from the autopsy surgeon. Result: 72% of the suicide victims were female, and 53% of those 361 victims were married. Most of the victims were from the age group of 21-30 years. Marital disharmony was the biggest common cause. The commonly used ligature material was Orna (dupatta). Conclusion: The number of deaths by suicide is on a rise, and to reduce this, a well-designed program is needed. This can help identify the causative factors f suicide by hanging and could help in preventing suicide cases.

Epidemiology of suicide in the Tricity metropolitan area in northern Poland 1980–2009: Evidence of influence by political and socioeconomic changes

ObjectivesThe paper presents the results of the statistical analyses of completed suicides in the Tri-City area, Poland from 1980 to 2009. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the trait dynamics of completed suicides in the context of drastic political and socioeconomic transformations. MethodsStatistical analysis of approximately 30,000 autopsy cases, including 3885 suicides, was performed. All data were evaluated using the STATISTICA version 10 software. ResultsThe analyses revealed an increasing number of suicide completers. Men committed suicide more frequently and were younger than female suicide committers. We observed also an increase in the mean age of suicide completers. More suicides occurred in the spring and summer compared to autumn and winter seasons. The most common method of suicide was hanging. ConclusionsThe results of this study suggest temporal changes in trends, methods and social profile of suicide attempters related to political and socioeconomic changes in Poland in the years 1980–2009. These included the activity of the opposition movement “Solidarity”, the introduction of martial law in December 1981, the fall of communism and democratization processes, and the shifting from the system of a centrally planned economy to a neoliberal capitalism.

19세기 말~20세기 초 ‘위핍자살(威逼自殺)’의 실태와 행위 양식 -규장각 소장 검안 자료를 중심으로-

Highlighted in this article is a unique form (and notion) of a suicidal action that prevailed in the Joseon society known as “Suicide by Harassment(Wipib Jasal),” as well as certain behavioral patterns displayed by the Joseon people who were involved in such tragic incidents. This particular social phenomenon was referred to in a legal clause entitled “Harassment leading to a loss of life(Wipibin Chisa, 威逼人致死)” inside Daemyeon g’ryul(大明律, The Great Ming Law), and notions concerning this very phenomenon was also formed on the basis of this clause, which was essentially inserted in the law code to deal with murder cases in which an individual would harass another with his or her power, and eventually drive that person to its own demise.<BR> But in order for this particular clause to be invoked, the victim had to have taken his or her own life, on his or her own. This led to the people of the time trying to ascertain the offender responsible for the victim’s death, whenever a case of suicide would occur. The Geoman(Autopsy) reports currently in custody of the Gyujanggak archives show us the process of authorities trying to find out and determine the offender responsible for the tragic outcome. In this article, suicides caused by external harassment is defined as “Wipib” suicides, as in “suicide by harassment.”<BR> Analysis of the Wipib suicides reveal certain patterns, interestingly in terms of the relationship between the offender and the victim, as well as a variety of fashions from a number of cases. Cases showing male offenders and male victims seem to be the most prominent types, and of female offenders and male victims are the least noticeable types. Relevant cases also display ‘additional violence,’ with offenders harassing not only the victim but the victim’s family members as well.<BR> Behaviors of people involved in Wipib suicide cases also reveal interesting aspects of the people’s attitude toward such cases. As mentioned earlier, Wipib suicide was a type of suicide which always involved an offender responsible for the victim resorting to killing oneself, and such fact was clearly on the people’s minds. Whenever a Wipib suicide would take place, people would move the victim’s body to the place of the (suspected) offender, as a gesture and an effective act of pointing to the individual responsible for the tragedy. In fact, a person planning to take one’s life would even kill oneself at the offender’s place, making this type of suicide all the more peculiar and unique.

Suicide methods in South Asia over two decades (2001-2020).

Suicide is a global preventable public health problem. About a quarter of all suicides in the world occur in South Asia. As means restriction is an important suicide prevention strategy, gaining knowledge of the common suicide methods and their changing trends in each country and region is crucial. We aimed to assess the suicide methods in South Asian countries over the last two decades. A search was performed in PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus, and Google Scholar with the search terms. Original articles of quantitative studies, published in the English language, from 2001 to 2020, with full-accessible text, that rank different methods of suicide in eight South Asian countries, were included. A total of 68 studies were found eligible for review. The Maximum number of studies were found from India (n = 38), followed by Bangladesh (n = 12), Pakistan (n = 9), Sri Lanka (n = 6), and Nepal (n = 3). Hanging (n = 40, 55.8%) and poisoning (n = 24, 35.3%) were the two most common suicide methods reported, in that order. Hanging followed by poisoning were the commonest suicide methods in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan while in Sri Lanka, poisoning was the preferred method to hanging. There is a decline in suicide by poisoning and an increase in suicide by hanging in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India. Although hanging is still the commonest method in Pakistan, the use of firearms is growing in recent years (2011-2020). There is a steady decline in the incidence of suicides by poisoning following pesticide regulations in South Asian countries. However, there is heterogeneity of study methods, probable under-reporting of suicide, and lack of robust suicide data.

Assessment of Psychopathology in Adolescents with Insulin-Dependent Diabetes (IDD) and the Impact on Treatment Management.

Assessing mental health in children and adolescents with insulin-dependent diabetes (IDD) is an issue that is underperformed in clinical practice and outpatient clinics. The evaluation of their thoughts, emotions and behaviors has an important role in understanding the interaction between the individual and the disease, the factors that can influence this interaction, as well as the effective methods of intervention. The aim of this study is to identify psychopathology in adolescents with diabetes and the impact on treatment management. A total of 54 adolescents with IDD and 52 adolescents without diabetes, aged 12–18 years, completed APS–SF (Adolescent Psychopathology Scale–Short Form) for the evaluation of psychopathology and adjustment problems. There were no significant differences between adolescents with diabetes and control group regarding psychopathology. Between adolescents with good treatment adherence (HbA1c < 7.6) and those with low treatment adherence (HbA1c > 7.6), significant differences were found. In addition, results showed higher scores in girls compared with boys with IDD with regard to anxiety (GAD), Major Depression (DEP), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Eating Disturbance (EAT), Suicide (SUI) and Interpersonal Problems (IPP). No significant differences were found regarding the duration of the disease. Strategies such as maladaptive coping, passivity, distorted conception of the self and the surrounding world and using the negative problem-solving strategies of non-involvement and abandonment had positive correlation with poor glycemic control (bad management of the disease). The study highlighted the importance of promoting mental health in insulin-dependent diabetes management.

Protective factors against suicidality in childhood and adolescence

Adolescence phase is characterized by a multitude of challenges which enhance the vulnerability of an individual to various mental health outcomes. Half of the lifetime cases of psychiatric disorders present by the age of 14 years and three-fourth of the all lifetime cases of psychiatric disorders evolve by age of 24 years. India is accounting high number of suicides in the world, despite having significant growth in economic power, literacy rates and health indices. Children and adolescents constitute about two-fifth of Indian population. Evidence of suicidal ideation in preadolescent children is substantial. Adolescents who have suicidal ideation have a 12 times greater risk of suicide at the age of 30. Suicide is the second common cause of death in the age group of 15-29 years.

TBI and Suicidality: A Story of Stress, Risk, and Resilience.

TBI and Suicidality: A Story of Stress, Risk, and Resilience.

Suicide in Nigeria: observations from the content analysis of newspapers

BackgroundSuicide is a global public health problem and Nigeria is one of the epicentres of suicide in the world. However, there is a dearth of research exploring the epidemiological aspects...

Postmortem Combined Psychological and Psychiatric Forensic Expertise in Cases of Juvenile Suicide

Postmortem Combined Psychological and Psychiatric Forensic Expertise in Cases of Juvenile Suicide

Suicidal Motives of > by Hauptmann

Suicidal Motives of > by Hauptmann

A study on the surrogate experience of traumatization of counselors who counseled with people bereaved by family’s suicide: Interpretative phenomenological analysis approach

A study on the surrogate experience of traumatization of counselors who counseled with people bereaved by family’s suicide: Interpretative phenomenological analysis approach