Search

The aim of this follow-up study was to examine factors related to a suicide attempt within 3 months of a prior attempt. Participants were recruited from a suicide-prevention center. Of 96 suicidal individuals who had participated in the baseline study, only 51 completed all measures at follow-up assessment. Study results showed that suicidal individuals who reattempted suicide during the first 3 months of follow-up care exhibited lower mean scores on all four domains of the brief version of the World Health Organization Quality-of-Life Instrument at follow-up assessment than at baseline. In contrast, individuals who did not reattempt suicide had higher quality-of-life scores across all domains between baseline and 3 months. The reattempt and no-reattempt groups differed significantly in the physical health and environmental domains. These results can be used by nurses to develop their abilities to recognize and prevent suicide reattempts in high-risk groups., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

In this article we present the findings of a qualitative study exploring what suicide survivors in Taiwan experienced after a family member's suicide and how they adjusted to the perceived stigma. Fifteen suicide survivors participated in this study. We found that when a family member's suicide death occurred, survivors first kept a low profile when holding the funeral, and then tried to expel the dead person from their family. They also wished that their grief and painful, shameful feelings could be buried with the dead person. These findings suggest that health care professionals need to work more closely with suicide survivors through understanding the survivors' fear and pain from a sociocultural perspective, and to help them construct a new moral life.

The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study is to describe the commonality of the lived experience of suicide survivors and how it influences their family relationships in Taiwan from a sociocultural perspective. Thirteen suicide survivors have participated in this study. Study results reveal that some survivors blame themselves, some blame others, and some are blamed by their family as part of their need to find a reason for the death. Consequently, family members ignore each other and treat each other as if they are invisible. These Chinese suicide survivors, unlike Western survivors, maintain their strained family connections because of strong cultural influences. Therefore, health professionals should acknowledge the experiences of living with an invisible family when supporting Chinese suicide survivors.

In the ethnographic study on which this article is based, the authors investigate experiences after a suicide attempt from the perspective of patients and their family members in Taiwan. Thirty-four patients and 49 family members or colleagues participated in interviews from the point of patients' hospitalization to their return to the community. The postsuicide stigma suffered by patients and their families was based on such cultural themes as Suicide is bu-hsiao (non-filial piety), Suicide results in an inability to transmigrate the soul, and Suicide is inherited. Patients, family members, and colleagues cope with the stigma through explaining suicide as due to "bad luck" or "a kan-huo (hot energy) problem," or by insisting that it was "not a true suicide." These findings suggest that health professionals can move closer to patients and their families and suggest appropriate health care policy through understanding the patient's and the family's explanation of suicide experiences.