UCL Division of Psychiatry, Maple House, 149 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 7NF, UK.
Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, St Pancras Hospital, St Pancras Way, London, NW1 0PE, UK.
BMC Psychiatry. 2017 Dec 13;17(1):400. doi: 10.1186/s12888-017-1560-3.
People bereaved by suicide are at increased risk of suicide attempt and suicide, but explanations for these associations remain theoretical. It is possible that the experience of suicide bereavement modifies personal attitudes towards suicide, but the nature of these changes remains unexplored. There is a need to understand personal attitudes to suicide following suicide bereavement, as this may inform the development of suicide prevention interventions. Our aim was to explore the attitudes of young adults bereaved by suicide towards their own likelihood of dying by suicide.
We conducted a cross-sectional study of staff and students aged 18-40 at 37 United Kingdom (UK) higher educational institutions in 2010. Ethical approval was granted by the UCL Research Ethics Committee. 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. We identified key themes in this dataset using thematic analysis.
Analysis 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. 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. 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.
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. The normalising attitudes to suicide observed in a minority of respondents could contribute to the observed association between suicide bereavement and suicide attempt.
自杀身亡者的自杀未遂和自杀风险增加，但这些关联的解释仍然是理论性的。有可能自杀丧亲经历改变了个人对自杀的态度，但这些变化的性质仍未得到探索。有必要了解自杀丧亲后的个人对自杀的态度，因为这可能为自杀预防干预措施的制定提供信息。我们的目的是探讨年轻成年人在经历自杀丧亲后对自己自杀可能性的态度。
我们于 2010 年在英国 37 所高等教育机构的 18-40 岁的工作人员和学生中进行了一项横断面研究。UCL 伦理委员会批准了该研究的伦理。429 名曾经历过亲密接触自杀的丧亲者对探究自身自杀态度的问题做出了定性回应。我们使用主题分析方法确定了该数据集的主要主题。
分析确定了四个主要主题：自杀作为一种更切实可行的选择（无论是否害怕）；认同死者和意识到共同面临自杀的脆弱性；个人避免自杀的决心；以及对自杀预防措施的信念。这些主题反映了参与者对自身自杀可能性的看法存在广泛分歧，这受到对自身自杀的恐惧程度以及对决定自杀死亡的控制程度的影响。尽管大多数人描述了对自杀想法的厌恶，主要是通过意识到对他人的影响，但少数人描述了他们的经历使自杀成为个人选择的正常化。
来自英国的一组自杀丧亲者的观点表明，接触亲密朋友或亲属的自杀可能会以影响自杀未遂的方式影响对自杀的态度。在少数受访者中观察到的对自杀的正常化态度可能导致观察到的自杀丧亲与自杀未遂之间的关联。
