Suicide clusters: introducing a novel type of categorization

A suicide cluster within a given community may be defined as a group of suicides or suicide attempts, or both, that happen closer together in time and space than would generally be expected. However, since the perception of clustering may itself be a risk factor for suicide, suicide clusters differ almost from all other event clusters. The aim of this article, therefore, is to discuss the unique pattern of suicide cluster and introduce a novel type of categorization taking into account varieties of studies, which investigate suicide clusters within diverse settings. This article concludes with challenging areas in suicide cluster studies and emphasizing that each community must deal rapidly and appropriately with any perceived suicide clusters.     

Book Review

The prevalence of suicide suggests social workers will encounter clients at risk for suicide, but research shows social workers receive little to no training on suicide and suicide prevention and feel unprepared to work effectively with clients at risk. Baseline results from a randomized intervention study of the Question, Persuade, and Refer suicide prevention gatekeeper training with 73 advanced master’s of social work student interns show suicide knowledge was average, attitudes about suicide prevention were generally neutral, and use of suicide prevention practice skills was low. These results indicate an opportunity for enhancing student outcomes through training and inform social work education regarding necessary preparation for student interns and new graduates to identify and respond effectively to client suicide risk.     

PUBLIC SUICIDE AS A DEED OF OPTIONLESS INTIMACY

This article offers an ethnomethodological analysis of suicide practices in situ. By analyzing a videotaped record of a public suicide by a government official this article is able to examine the temporal relations between the unfolding suicide act and the situational contingencies arising from its interactional context. In the case examined, the suicide was planned as a ceremony, in part to indicate the official facing corruption charges. A press conference provided the pretext for the suicide ceremony in which the official intended to deliver a prepared speech to accuse his accusers and bid farewell to loved ones before shooting himself. Things turned out differently than he planned, though he did in the end shoot himself. The analysis focuses on how the audience's reaction to the imminent suicide foreclosed the suicide cermony while at the same time pre-emptying the pre-suicide speech deferring the impending suicide.     

Comprehensive College Student Suicide Assessment: Application of the BASIC ID

Whether one knows someone who is thinking of suicide, has attempted suicide, or has completed suicide, nearly all individuals who encounter suicide are affected. The influence and residual affects of suicide are further amplified as the issue reaches across communities such as college or university campuses. College and university staff must improve their response to suicidal ideation with comprehensive assessment and intervention. The authors discuss risk factors and basic screening methods for suicide risk. They present Lazarus' BASIC ID tool (ie, Behavior, Affective Responses, Sensations, Images, Cognitions, Interpersonal Relationships, and Drugs or Biological Influences) as a method for conducting a comprehensive suicide assessment. The authors demonstrate assessment procedures through a case vignette.     

Black adolescents' racial discrimination and suicide behaviors: Testing perceived school safety as a protective moderator

The current study examined associations between Black adolescents' (M_age = 15.55, SD = 1.23) racial discrimination and suicide behaviors (i.e., suicide ideation, suicide plan, and suicide attempts), and whether perceived school safety was a protective moderator. Furthermore, we tested gender differences in relations, which were not significant. Racial discrimination predicted greater suicide behaviors, and school safety informed less suicide behaviors. School safety moderated the relation between discrimination and suicide plan, such that at low school safety, discrimination predicted having a suicide plan but was not significant at high school safety. Furthermore, school safety moderated the relation between discrimination and suicide attempts. At low school safety, discrimination predicted more suicide attempts, but was not significant at high school safety.     

Perceptions of suicide and their impact on policy,discourse and welfare

In recent years, there has been an increase in suicide rates throughout the Western world. However, psycho-social responses to the problem are limited, as is public awareness of suicide and its consequences. This article presents findings from a survey on public attitudes toward suicide in Israel. The survey was conducted among a representative sample, and examined the extent to which the problem is a public priority for developing interventions aimed at preventing and reducing the rates of suicide. The findings revealed that despite the prevalence of suicide in Israel, and even though many of the participants had been personally acquainted with the families of suicide victims, suicide still ranks low on the hierarchy of bereavement. The Israeli public is ignorant about suicide, and does not consider it a problem that calls for government intervention and accountability. The study highlights the need for social workers to play an active role as social agents in an attempt to change the social ‘bereavement pyramid’ perception and effect on government policy toward suicide.     

Genre,suicide et sexualité(s) en Algérie

According to a popular and widespread belief, suicide is a rare phenomenon, if not absent at all, in Muslim societies. It is considered as a sociologically irrelevant because of the cognitive power and efficacy of religion. This idea is reinforced by the upheaval of suicide bombings and terrorism, the clamour of which conceals the phenomenon of civil suicide. This article will explore civil suicide through interviews held in Algeria, in which suicide is described as a more feminine, young and rural phenomena. These three dimensions are marginal in social science studies on ‘Islamic’ suicide, which are mainly centred on a Durkheimian analysis – that is to say an analysis which considers suicide as an essentially urban and male phenomenon, far from gender issues and conformed to dominant regimes of discourse.     

Comprehensive college student suicide assessment: application of the BASIC ID

Whether one knows someone who is thinking of suicide, has attempted suicide, or has completed suicide, nearly all individuals who encounter suicide are affected. The influence and residual affects of suicide are further amplified as the issue reaches across communities such as college or university campuses. College and university staff must improve their response to suicidal ideation with comprehensive assessment and intervention. The authors discuss risk factors and basic screening methods for suicide risk. They present Lazarus' BASIC ID tool (ie, Behavior, Affective Responses, Sensations, Images, Cognitions, Interpersonal Relationships, and Drugs or Biological Influences) as a method for conducting a comprehensive suicide assessment. The authors demonstrate assessment procedures through a case vignette.     

Exposure to Suicide Movies and Suicide Attempts: A Research Note

Research on the impact of exposure to suicide movies on suicidality has been marked by three limitations. It is largely based on (1) aggregate data subject to the ecological fallacy, (2) exposure to a single movie, and (3) relative lack of controls for psychological states and social factors linked to suicide. The present study addresses these gaps. It follows a modified Beach method and assesses the impact of cumulative, voluntary exposure to suicide movies on suicide attempts. The subjects are 260 undergraduates at a midwestern university. The dependent variable is a previous suicide attempt. Cumulative exposure to suicide movies is based on self-reports. Controls include religiosity, depression, burdensomeness, and demographics. A multivariate logistic regression analysis determined that, controlling for other predictors, for each additional movie exposure the risk of attempted suicide increased by 47.6 percent. This is the first investigation to demonstrate a link between cumulative, voluntary exposure to suicide movies on suicidality.     

Suicide Ideation Among College Students Evidencing Subclinical Depression

Abstract

Identifying elevated suicide ideation in college students is a critical step in preventing suicide attempts and deaths by suicide on college campuses. Although suicide ideation may be most prominent in students with severe depression, this should not suggest that only students with severe depression experience significant risk factors for suicide. Objective: The purpose of these 3 studies was to explore the relation between suicide ideation and severity of depressive symptoms in college students. Participants: In each study a sample of college students were recruited for participation. Methods: Participants completed self-report assessments of depressive symptoms and suicide ideation. Results: The results of these studies suggest that although the greatest elevation in suicide ideation occurs at the highest depressive symptoms, significant suicide ideation is also experienced by college students with mild and moderate depressive symptoms. Conclusions: The implications of these findings for the assessment of suicide ideation are discussed.     

PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARD SUICIDE DEMOGRAPHIC AND IDEOLOGICAL CORRELATES

Despite long-standing research interest in the social correlatesof suicide, public attitudes toward suicide have received comparativelylittle attention. Using data from NORC's General Social Survey,this study examines popular support for a person's right tocommit suicide when s/he is tired of living or faced with anincurable disease, bankruptcy, or family dishonor. Survey responsesto these four items conform to a unidimensional Guttman-typescale. Opposition to suicide, as measured by this scale, variesalong a number of sociodemographic lines. Prolife beliefs andcivil libertarianism are strongly related to a person's attitudestoward suicide and explain at least part of every sociodemographicrelationship examined. By contrast, life satisfaction, anomia,and social participation measures show no significant associationswith suicide attitudes.     

Contemporary Social Problems in Japan: A Study of the Suicide and Depopulation Problems

Abstract  Two complementary investigations were undertaken:
1. Research into the relationship between suicide and depopulation in Shimane Prefecture.
2. Research into the relationship between the perception of social problems and unwanted objective conditions, employing suicide as the example of unwanted conditions.
To summarize the most important findings:
1. The suicide rates have been notably higher in depopulated areas.
2. The partial correlation of suicide to depopulation was high, when the effect of aging of population was removed.
3. This partial correlation has increased since 1975. There has been an aggravation of the problem of suicide as a depopulation problem.
4. The correlation of suicide to aging of the population vanished, when the effect of depopulation was removed.
5. At 70 and over, the suicide rates have been notably higher in depopulated areas.
6. The correlation of the age-specific suicide rate with the depopulation rate, increases with age and the correlation of the suicide rate among old people to the depopulation rate, was notably higher.
7. These suicidal tendencies express the mores of society. Morality underlies the perception of social problems, while morality could not exist without generating suicide at a certain point. Both suicide and the perception of suicide as social problems are largely determined by morality. This is our paradoxical hypothesis.
8. Lastly, we emphasize that there are serious depopulation problems in Japan. This is particularly obvious, if suicide is employed as the indicator of depopulation severity.     

Young people's explanations for youth suicide in New Zealand: a thematic analysis

New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the developed world and dominant approaches to prevention do not always take into account the views of young people. The purpose of this research was to update our understanding of young people's explanations of suicide in order to inform suicide prevention efforts. Focus groups were conducted with 38 young people, including 30 young women and 8 young men aged 15–22. The data was analysed thematically to identify the range of explanations young people ascribe to youth suicide. Five themes were identified by the analysis including that suicide could be explained by inescapable difficulties, constant pressure, emotional distress and could also be seen as a cry for help. In contrast to these normalised experiences, participants also expressed the view that mental illness might also account for suicide. The findings suggest that young people recognise suicide as a complex problem with multiple causes. While they recognised mental health problems as contributing, youth suicide was primarily understood by young people as a normal response to emotional distress and pressure. Prevention programmes should address the full range of explanations that young people give for suicide in order to promote their engagement in prevention programmes.     

Solution-focused therapy for families coping with suicide

Solution-focused therapy is proposed as a model for families coping with suicide. The nature and incidence of suicide is described along with a consideration of the effects that suicide has on families and prevailing treatment approaches. Three case examples illustrate the application. Implications are discussed pertaining to the theory, practice, and research of solution-focused therapy for families coping with suicide.     

Experimental and pragmatic approaches to the incidence of adolescent suicide

Since the early 1960s, the incidence of adolescent suicide has been increasing at an alarming rate. In response, social science researchers working in both the experimental and pragmatic epistemological paradigms have been studying the processes involved in this phenomenon and developing suicide prevention and suicide response programs in schools. In this article we review general issues involved in the contrasting and, at times, conflicting approaches taken by experimental and pragmatic researchers to adolescent suicide. These issues are then illustrated in a case study in which experimental and pragmatic proponents worked together on an evaluation of a school-based suicide education program.     

Current Implementation of and Opinions and Concerns Regarding Suicide Education for Social Work Undergraduate Students in Japan: A Cross-Sectional Study

This study explored the current implementation status of and opinions and concerns regarding suicide education at schools of social work in Japan. We conducted a survey of faculty members who taught at least one of the social work subjects. About half the respondents had given a lecture of some kind on suicide, and more than 80% agreed that suicide is an important topic to include in social work program curricula. However, more than half indicated they did not have enough knowledge or skills to teach students about suicide, and more than 60% were concerned about adverse psychological effects of suicide education on students. Our findings highlight the importance of providing faculty members with guidelines for teaching students about suicide.     

近年来我国大学生自杀心理剖析

研究自杀大学生的心理变化过程,对预防大学生自杀具有积极的作用。对大学生自杀案例进行剖析的结果表明,大学生自杀行为“因穷至卑”和“因穷自杀”现象不明显;不同原因自杀的心理动机存在差异,并且主要集中在“情感挫折”、“学习就业压力”、“个人心理障碍”、“家庭原因”和“生理健康”5类。自杀大学生的心理状态随着自杀意念的发生发展呈现一定的规律性,他们在实施自杀的过程中都经历了复杂的心理过程。     

Loss by suicide. A risk factor for suicidal behavior

1. Data show suicidal behavior often is precipitated by individuals' experience of loss by suicide. This article focuses on three potential links between the two phenomena (i.e., grief experienced by suicide survivors and familial risk factors for suicide; suicide clusters and pacts; consequences of mass media portrayals of suicide). 2. Suicide bereavement has certain typical characteristics that comprise the "suicide survivor syndrome" and may be linked with increased risk of suicidal ideation and behavior. 3. Individuals' suicidal behavior and ideation can lead to suicide clusters (i.e., a group of suicides or attempts occurring close together in time and space) and pacts (i.e., mutual agreements between two people who promise to kill themselves at the same time, often in the same place). 4. Mass media portrayals of suicide may lead to imitative suicides (i.e., the "Werther effect").