Personal attitudes to suicide are theorised to play a key role in forming suicidal ideas. Gaining an understanding of this phenomenon is the focus of the current study. The phenomenon is described by a number of terms, none of which satisfactorily describe the phenomenon, but include imitative suicide, suicide contagion, or suicide diffusion. The last of these describes the impact of a role model’s suicide or suicide attempt on a person’s internal constraints against self-harm, whether due to social learning, imitation or emotional contagion. These included: the psychological trauma of a suicide loss shared familial or environmental vulnerabilities to mental illness and suicidality the influence of stigma on help-seeking and suicide suggestion. We also suggested various explanations for the association between suicide bereavement and suicide attempt, based on the literature and clinical observation.
Our earlier systematic review described the increased risk of suicide, psychiatric admission, and depression in people bereaved by suicide. These can then be trialled for their effectiveness in reducing the risk of suicide and improving wider health outcomes for this group. It is critical to develop and test theories about potential explanatory factors, in order to design interventions to address modifiable risk factors. A key barrier to developing effective interventions is the lack of understanding of the mechanisms of suicidality after suicide bereavement. Most suicide prevention strategies highlight the need to provide support to this group but there is weak evidence for interventions to improve their health outcomes and a perceived lack of informal support. With over 800,000 people dying by suicide worldwide annually, evidence suggests that the past year prevalence of exposure to suicide bereavement is 4%, with a lifetime prevalence of 22%. These bereaved individuals have an increased risk of suicide and suicide attempt, with one in ten people reporting having attempted suicide after the suicide of a close contact. The normalising attitudes to suicide observed in a minority of respondents could contribute to the observed association between suicide bereavement and suicide attempt.įor every suicide it is estimated that ten relatives or friends are deeply affected by the death. The views of a sample of UK-based adults bereaved by suicide suggest that exposure to the suicide of a close friend or relative can influence attitudes to suicide in ways that could influence own risk of suicide attempt. Whilst the majority described an aversion to the idea of attempting suicide themselves, largely through an awareness of the impact on others, a minority described their experiences as having normalised suicide as a personal option. These themes reflected a broad split in participants' views regarding own likelihood of dying by suicide, influenced by the degree to which own suicide was feared and the extent to which they felt in control of determining a suicide death. ResultsĪnalysis identified four main themes: suicide as a more tangible option (whether feared or not) identification with the deceased and awareness of shared vulnerabilities to suicide personal determination to avoid suicide and beliefs regarding safeguards against suicide. We identified key themes in this dataset using thematic analysis. Qualitative responses to a question probing attitudes to own suicide were provided by 429 respondents who had experienced bereavement by the suicide of a close contact. Ethical approval was granted by the UCL Research Ethics Committee. We conducted a cross-sectional study of staff and students aged 18–40 at 37 United Kingdom (UK) higher educational institutions in 2010. Our aim was to explore the attitudes of young adults bereaved by suicide towards their own likelihood of dying by suicide. There is a need to understand personal attitudes to suicide following suicide bereavement, as this may inform the development of suicide prevention interventions. It is possible that the experience of suicide bereavement modifies personal attitudes towards suicide, but the nature of these changes remains unexplored. People bereaved by suicide are at increased risk of suicide attempt and suicide, but explanations for these associations remain theoretical.
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