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Qualitative Evidence in Suicide Ideation, Attempts, and Suicide Prevention

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Handbook of Qualitative Health Research for Evidence-Based Practice

Part of the book series: Handbooks in Health, Work, and Disability ((SHHDW,volume 4))

Abstract

Understandings of suicidal behavior which contextualize and historicize the experience of despair, and which privilege subjective meanings, provide important insights into this complex phenomenon. The main purpose of this chapter is to bring to light the significant contributions that qualitative researchers have made to the evidence base on suicidal behaviors and suicide prevention. The burgeoning qualitative research literature on suicidal behaviors and suicide prevention practice is organized into three broad, overlapping categories: (a) lived experience of suicidality and healing, (b) practices and perceptions of care and treatment for suicidal individuals, and (c) conceptualizations of suicidal behavior and suicide prevention. Several practical implications of this body of evidence for health practitioners, policy makers, and researchers are highlighted. It is hoped that readers are inspired to think differently about what it means to suffer, to care, and to act in ways that support suicidal people to reengage with the project of living, within a broad context of justice, cultural diversity, and ethical social relations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Suicidology is the study of suicide, suicidal behavior, and suicide prevention. In the United States, suicidology is strongly associated with the work of Edwin Shneidman and Norman Farberow who began publishing research on suicide in the 1950s and 1960s (Spencer-Thomas and Jahn 2012). While the scholarly study of suicide goes back centuries, Laird (2011) notes that suicidology is a distinctly modernist movement that emerged in the 1960s based on the growing prominence of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, anthropology, and statistics.

  2. 2.

    Suicidal behavior is an all-encompassing phrase that includes suicidal thoughts, feelings, attempts, and communications.

  3. 3.

    As just one example, the social and bureaucratic processes through which coroners and medical examiners come to classify a death as a suicide were the focus of an interesting ethnographic study by Timmerman (2005).

  4. 4.

    Since terms like deliberate self-harm (DSH) are used in multiple and inconsistent ways by researchers (i.e., inclusive of suicidal actions in some cases, but not always), some relevant studies may have been inadvertently excluded.

  5. 5.

    Multiple published articles can emerge from a single study, and different members of a research team can analyze and report on different aspects of a large qualitative dataset.

  6. 6.

    An exception is the study by Horne and Wiggins (2009). They used a discursive psychology framework to analyze how individuals worked up an “authentic” suicidal identity in an online forum for those with suicidal thoughts. They also examined how others responded to these particular identity constructions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada, V8Z 2W2

    Jennifer White Ed.D.

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  1. Jennifer White Ed.D.
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Correspondence to Jennifer White Ed.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Karin Olson

  2. Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, and Special Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Richard A. Young

  3. Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology, and Special Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Izabela Z. Schultz

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White, J. (2016). Qualitative Evidence in Suicide Ideation, Attempts, and Suicide Prevention. In: Olson, K., Young, R., Schultz, I. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Health Research for Evidence-Based Practice. Handbooks in Health, Work, and Disability, vol 4. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2920-7_20

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