an article by Florian Arendt (University of Vienna, Austria), Sebastian Scherr (KU Leuven, Belgium) and Daniel Romer (University of Pennsylvania, USA) published in New Media & Society Volume 21 Issue 11-12 (November 2019)
Abstract
Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth, and media depictions of suicidal behaviour can be a contributing risk factor.
Of interest, Instagram recently received more scholarly attention due to its large number of publicly available, explicit, and graphic depictions of self-harm. Importantly, researchers have hypothesized that exposure to this content could be a risk for self-harm and suicide in vulnerable audiences.
We tested this hypothesis using a two-wave US panel survey among young adults (N = 729).
Analyses indicated that exposure to self-harm on Instagram was associated with suicidal ideation, self-harm, and emotional disturbance even controlling for exposure to other sources with similar content.
As hypothesised, exposure to self-harm on Instagram at the first wave prospectively predicted self-harm and suicidality-related outcomes at the second wave 1 month later.
These findings provide evidence that such exposure can lead to contagion in vulnerable users.
Implications are discussed.
Full text (PDF 21pp)
Showing posts with label suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suicide. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 November 2019
Saturday, 26 October 2019
The Humanitarian Crisis Of Deaths Of Despair
posted by S, Abbas Raza in 3 Quarks Daily: David V. Johnson in the APA Blog:
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay
Last April, Princeton University economists and married partners Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Stanford University. The title of their talks, “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism”, is also the provisional name of their forthcoming book, to be published in 2020.
The couple’s research has focused on disturbing mortality data for a specific demographic: white non-Hispanic Americans without college degrees. This century, they have been dying at alarming rates from what Case and Deaton call “deaths of despair”, which cover suicide, alcohol-related disease, and drug overdoses (primarily driven by opioids). These deaths have, along with US obesity, heart disease, and cancer rates, contributed to a shocking recent decline in US life expectancy for three straight years—something which hasn’t happened since World War I and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The rates for “deaths of despair” are not as high for college-educated whites or for other racial minorities, and there are many potential economic and sociological reasons for this.
Case and Deaton’s research raises important questions for the US political economy and the legacy of neoliberalism. But I am more interested in the framing of the mortality statistics as “deaths of despair.”
More here.
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay
Last April, Princeton University economists and married partners Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Stanford University. The title of their talks, “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism”, is also the provisional name of their forthcoming book, to be published in 2020.
The couple’s research has focused on disturbing mortality data for a specific demographic: white non-Hispanic Americans without college degrees. This century, they have been dying at alarming rates from what Case and Deaton call “deaths of despair”, which cover suicide, alcohol-related disease, and drug overdoses (primarily driven by opioids). These deaths have, along with US obesity, heart disease, and cancer rates, contributed to a shocking recent decline in US life expectancy for three straight years—something which hasn’t happened since World War I and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The rates for “deaths of despair” are not as high for college-educated whites or for other racial minorities, and there are many potential economic and sociological reasons for this.
Case and Deaton’s research raises important questions for the US political economy and the legacy of neoliberalism. But I am more interested in the framing of the mortality statistics as “deaths of despair.”
More here.
Friday, 9 August 2019
Psychiatric morbidity as a risk factor for hospital inpatients' safety: a cross-sectional study
an article by Roberta Mutti (Teaching Hospital and Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale of Parma, Italy), Francesca Montali (Azienda Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Italy), Antonio Ferrari, Antonio Nouvenne, Fulvio Lauretani and Giovanna Campaniello (Teaching Hospital of Parma, Italy) and Carlo Marchesi (University of Parma, Italy) published in International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management Volume 22 Number 2 (2019)
Abstract
Very few studies have shown the relation between psychiatric morbidity and hospital care safety. Some studies emphasise the importance of proper management of care safety for patients treated in psychiatric settings. Therefore, it is of great importance to deeply analyse the psychiatric morbidity impact on the safety of patient care in non-psychiatric settings.
A cross-sectional study has been carried out, based on a simple random sample of N = 941 psychiatric consultations collected over a three-year period (2012-014) representative of N = 4548, sent to the intensive psychiatric hospital service by the wards of a university hospital.
Demographic characteristics and psychiatric morbidity of hospital inpatients are associated with the four main outcomes/events due to the patients' active participation in the care processes (patient fall, patients' departure, suicide attempt or self-harm and acts of violence against professionals).
Abstract
Very few studies have shown the relation between psychiatric morbidity and hospital care safety. Some studies emphasise the importance of proper management of care safety for patients treated in psychiatric settings. Therefore, it is of great importance to deeply analyse the psychiatric morbidity impact on the safety of patient care in non-psychiatric settings.
A cross-sectional study has been carried out, based on a simple random sample of N = 941 psychiatric consultations collected over a three-year period (2012-014) representative of N = 4548, sent to the intensive psychiatric hospital service by the wards of a university hospital.
Demographic characteristics and psychiatric morbidity of hospital inpatients are associated with the four main outcomes/events due to the patients' active participation in the care processes (patient fall, patients' departure, suicide attempt or self-harm and acts of violence against professionals).
Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Common Signs of Someone Who May Be Suicidal
a post by John M Grohol for the World of Psychology blog
About 70 percent of people who commit suicide give some sort of verbal or nonverbal clue about their intention to end their life. That means you could be in a position to guide someone to get help before they commit the one action that can never be taken back.
While 30,000 Americans die each year due to suicide, more than 800,000 Americans attempt suicide. Although women attempt suicide three times as often as men, men are four times more likely to be successful in their attempt.
Warning signs of suicide are not difficult to spot, but professionals differentiate between someone who simply has a passing thought of suicide or ending his or her own life, and someone who has persistent thoughts and has a definite plan. However you don’t have to know how serious a person is in order to help them.
Possible Suicide Warning Signs
Have you ever heard someone say two or more of the following?
Life isn’t worth living.
My family (or friends or girlfriend/boyfriend) would be better off without me.
Next time I’ll take enough pills to do the job right.
Take my prized collection or valuables — I don’t need this stuff anymore.
Don’t worry, I won’t be around to deal with that.
You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.
I won’t be in your way much longer.
I just can’t deal with everything — life’s too hard.
Soon I won’t be a burden anymore.
Nobody understands me — nobody feels the way I do.
There’s nothing I can do to make it better.
I’d be better off dead.
I feel like there is no way out.
You’d be better off without me.
Continue reading
About 70 percent of people who commit suicide give some sort of verbal or nonverbal clue about their intention to end their life. That means you could be in a position to guide someone to get help before they commit the one action that can never be taken back.
While 30,000 Americans die each year due to suicide, more than 800,000 Americans attempt suicide. Although women attempt suicide three times as often as men, men are four times more likely to be successful in their attempt.
Warning signs of suicide are not difficult to spot, but professionals differentiate between someone who simply has a passing thought of suicide or ending his or her own life, and someone who has persistent thoughts and has a definite plan. However you don’t have to know how serious a person is in order to help them.
Possible Suicide Warning Signs
Have you ever heard someone say two or more of the following?
Life isn’t worth living.
My family (or friends or girlfriend/boyfriend) would be better off without me.
Next time I’ll take enough pills to do the job right.
Take my prized collection or valuables — I don’t need this stuff anymore.
Don’t worry, I won’t be around to deal with that.
You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.
I won’t be in your way much longer.
I just can’t deal with everything — life’s too hard.
Soon I won’t be a burden anymore.
Nobody understands me — nobody feels the way I do.
There’s nothing I can do to make it better.
I’d be better off dead.
I feel like there is no way out.
You’d be better off without me.
Continue reading
Monday, 23 July 2018
When Suicide Summons
a post by Linda Sapadin for the World of Psychology blog
This is not a pleasant article to write. But then how could it be pleasant when I am writing about suicide. Yet, it’s important for all of us to attempt to understand the suicidal mind.
My interest in this topic began when I was in my mid-twenties, with the attempted suicide of my mother. My mother’s act of aggression did not come out of the blue. She was depressed; she was drinking; she demanded that life bend to her demands. When it seemed that life was going to do as it damn well pleased, she, in a fit of anger and despair, decided to take matters into her own hands. While she lived for many more years after her attempt, she never really got beyond her depression and all its many manifestations.
Continue reading
This is not a pleasant article to write. But then how could it be pleasant when I am writing about suicide. Yet, it’s important for all of us to attempt to understand the suicidal mind.
My interest in this topic began when I was in my mid-twenties, with the attempted suicide of my mother. My mother’s act of aggression did not come out of the blue. She was depressed; she was drinking; she demanded that life bend to her demands. When it seemed that life was going to do as it damn well pleased, she, in a fit of anger and despair, decided to take matters into her own hands. While she lived for many more years after her attempt, she never really got beyond her depression and all its many manifestations.
Continue reading
Saturday, 19 May 2018
‘Dead people don’t claim’: A psychopolitical autopsy of UK austerity suicides
an article by China Mills (University of Sheffield, England) published in Critical Social Policy Volume 38 Issue 2 (May 2018)
Abstract
One of the symptoms of post financial crisis austerity in the UK has been an increase in the numbers of suicides, especially by people who have experienced welfare reform.
This article develops and utilises an analytic framework of psychopolitical autopsy to explore media coverage of ‘austerity suicide’ and to take seriously the psychic life of austerity (internalisation, shame, anxiety), embedding it in a context of social dis-ease.
Drawing on three distinct yet interrelated areas of literature (the politics of affect and psychosocial dynamics of welfare, post and anti-colonial psychopolitics, and critical suicidology), the article aims to better understand how austerity ‘kills’.
Key findings include understanding austerity suicides as embedded within an affective economy of the anxiety caused by punitive welfare retrenchment, the stigmatisation of being a recipient of benefits, and the internalisation of market logic that assigns value through ‘productivity’ and conceptualises welfare entitlement as economic ‘burden’.
The significance of this approach lies in its ability to widen analytic framing of suicide from an individual and psychocentric focus, to illuminate culpability of government reforms while still retaining the complexity of suicide, and thus to provide relevant policy insights about welfare reform.
Abstract
One of the symptoms of post financial crisis austerity in the UK has been an increase in the numbers of suicides, especially by people who have experienced welfare reform.
This article develops and utilises an analytic framework of psychopolitical autopsy to explore media coverage of ‘austerity suicide’ and to take seriously the psychic life of austerity (internalisation, shame, anxiety), embedding it in a context of social dis-ease.
Drawing on three distinct yet interrelated areas of literature (the politics of affect and psychosocial dynamics of welfare, post and anti-colonial psychopolitics, and critical suicidology), the article aims to better understand how austerity ‘kills’.
Key findings include understanding austerity suicides as embedded within an affective economy of the anxiety caused by punitive welfare retrenchment, the stigmatisation of being a recipient of benefits, and the internalisation of market logic that assigns value through ‘productivity’ and conceptualises welfare entitlement as economic ‘burden’.
The significance of this approach lies in its ability to widen analytic framing of suicide from an individual and psychocentric focus, to illuminate culpability of government reforms while still retaining the complexity of suicide, and thus to provide relevant policy insights about welfare reform.
Saturday, 31 March 2018
With a drop in the number of suicides in prison, are prisons becoming safer?
an article by Graham Duncan for the Centre for Mental Health’s February Newsletter
In 2016 there were 120 apparent suicides in English and Welsh prisons, the highest number ever recorded. Suicides had been rising year on year up to this point, with 84 in 2014 and 95 in 2015. So the news in 2017 that the number of prisoners who had apparently died by suicide had dropped to 77 was good news and welcomed.
Seemingly, something was happening in the prison estate to address the dramatic rise in suicide deaths and one hopes that this can be sustained and further reduce the tragedy of prison suicide. Does this reduction in suicide amongst prisons mean that prisons are becoming safer places? Possibly, but not all the news is good news.
Any suicide is one too many and therefore unacceptable. We should work towards achieving zero suicides. But suicides in prison are, and I use this phrase guardedly, relatively rare events. They are of course ‘a’ barometer of prison safety, but as relatively rare events they are probably not the best barometer. In the region of two thirds of English and Welsh prisons had no recorded suicide deaths in 2017. One prison (HMP Nottingham) is reported as having had six.
Continue reading
In 2016 there were 120 apparent suicides in English and Welsh prisons, the highest number ever recorded. Suicides had been rising year on year up to this point, with 84 in 2014 and 95 in 2015. So the news in 2017 that the number of prisoners who had apparently died by suicide had dropped to 77 was good news and welcomed.
Seemingly, something was happening in the prison estate to address the dramatic rise in suicide deaths and one hopes that this can be sustained and further reduce the tragedy of prison suicide. Does this reduction in suicide amongst prisons mean that prisons are becoming safer places? Possibly, but not all the news is good news.
Any suicide is one too many and therefore unacceptable. We should work towards achieving zero suicides. But suicides in prison are, and I use this phrase guardedly, relatively rare events. They are of course ‘a’ barometer of prison safety, but as relatively rare events they are probably not the best barometer. In the region of two thirds of English and Welsh prisons had no recorded suicide deaths in 2017. One prison (HMP Nottingham) is reported as having had six.
Continue reading
Thursday, 2 November 2017
Firearm background checks and suicide: Learning more about firearms and suicide
an article by Matthew Lang for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal (6 October 2017)
Abstract
The majority of recent US bills loosen gun restrictions, thus rekindling the discussion about the relationship between guns and crime. This column presents research that investigates the effect of gun control on suicide. Using background checks as a proxy for gun ownership, the study finds a positive link between the access to guns and firearm suicide rates. This suggests that an increased availability of a particular suicide method can lead to more suicides.
Continue reading
Abstract
The majority of recent US bills loosen gun restrictions, thus rekindling the discussion about the relationship between guns and crime. This column presents research that investigates the effect of gun control on suicide. Using background checks as a proxy for gun ownership, the study finds a positive link between the access to guns and firearm suicide rates. This suggests that an increased availability of a particular suicide method can lead to more suicides.
Continue reading
Wednesday, 25 October 2017
Economic hardship and suicides
an article by
Marko Korhonen and Mikko Puhakka (University of Oulu, Finland) and
Matti Viren (University of Turku, Finland)
published in International Journal of Social Economics Volume 44 Issue 10 (2017)
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of aggregate suicides in 15 OECD countries during 1960-2010 using an economic model where changes in the welfare of consumers play the critical role for determining the number of suicides.
Design/methodology/approach
The hardship index based on economic theory is developed. In estimating the model, the authors apply the Pesaran et al. (2001) approach that allows the simultaneous estimation of the long-run and short-run parameters. To make sure that the authors’ findings are not specific to their method, the authors also use the generalized method of moments estimation in the panel set-up.
Findings
The authors found a relatively strong positive relationship between macroeconomic conditions, especially changes in aggregate consumption, and suicides. The relationship appears to be robust also in terms of the various control variables cited in the literature. The hardship index which is based on the habit persistence model of consumption predicts and explains the long-term behavior of suicides in most of the countries. Thus, the hardship index is a better economic explanatory variable than the unemployment rate or other proxies describing economic conditions.
Originality/value
Marrying the economic theory and econometric methods produces a reasonable empirical model to explain the connection between aggregate economic conditions and suicides.
JEL Classification: I12, D91
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of aggregate suicides in 15 OECD countries during 1960-2010 using an economic model where changes in the welfare of consumers play the critical role for determining the number of suicides.
Design/methodology/approach
The hardship index based on economic theory is developed. In estimating the model, the authors apply the Pesaran et al. (2001) approach that allows the simultaneous estimation of the long-run and short-run parameters. To make sure that the authors’ findings are not specific to their method, the authors also use the generalized method of moments estimation in the panel set-up.
Findings
The authors found a relatively strong positive relationship between macroeconomic conditions, especially changes in aggregate consumption, and suicides. The relationship appears to be robust also in terms of the various control variables cited in the literature. The hardship index which is based on the habit persistence model of consumption predicts and explains the long-term behavior of suicides in most of the countries. Thus, the hardship index is a better economic explanatory variable than the unemployment rate or other proxies describing economic conditions.
Originality/value
Marrying the economic theory and econometric methods produces a reasonable empirical model to explain the connection between aggregate economic conditions and suicides.
JEL Classification: I12, D91
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
‘Why would you want to do that?’: Defining emotional dirty work
an article by Robert McMurray (Durham University, UK) and Jenna Ward (De Montfort University, UK) published in Human Relations Volume 68 Number 9 (September 2014)
Abstract
This article considers how and why people work with difficult emotions.
Extending Hughes’ typology of the physical, social and moral taints that constitute ‘dirty work’, the article explores the nature of a previously neglected and undefined concept, emotional dirt.
Drawing on data from a situated ethnographic study of Samaritans, we consider how the handling of difficult and burdensome emotions, which are often written out of rational accounts of work, is outsourced to others who act as society’s agents in the containment of emotional dirt. We provide the first explicit definition of emotional dirt, and contribute an extension to the existing tripartite classification of occupational taint.
Moreover, in naming emotional dirt we seek to open up a sphere of research dedicated to understanding its emergence, nature and relational effects. To this end, we demonstrate how taint emerges as a sociological consequence of the performance of emotional labour as emotional dirty work, while considering how management of the difficult, negative or out-of-place emotions of others can be framed as a positive experience such that it can be good to feel bad when handling emotional dirt.
Abstract
This article considers how and why people work with difficult emotions.
Extending Hughes’ typology of the physical, social and moral taints that constitute ‘dirty work’, the article explores the nature of a previously neglected and undefined concept, emotional dirt.
Drawing on data from a situated ethnographic study of Samaritans, we consider how the handling of difficult and burdensome emotions, which are often written out of rational accounts of work, is outsourced to others who act as society’s agents in the containment of emotional dirt. We provide the first explicit definition of emotional dirt, and contribute an extension to the existing tripartite classification of occupational taint.
Moreover, in naming emotional dirt we seek to open up a sphere of research dedicated to understanding its emergence, nature and relational effects. To this end, we demonstrate how taint emerges as a sociological consequence of the performance of emotional labour as emotional dirty work, while considering how management of the difficult, negative or out-of-place emotions of others can be framed as a positive experience such that it can be good to feel bad when handling emotional dirt.
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Youth perceptions of suicide and help-seeking: ...
‘They'd think I was weak or “mental”’
an article by Cate Curtisa (Department of Psychology, Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand) published in Journal of Youth Studies (online 28 July 2010)
Abstract
Youth suicide is an issue of international concern and the college population may have a considerably higher rate of suicidal behaviour than the general population, yet seeking help for suicidality is uncommon. This research sought to understand college students’ knowledge of suicidal behaviour and attitudes to help-seeking, in a New Zealand university. A mixed-method approach comprising a survey and interviews was utilised. Approximately one-fifth of participants had been suicidal, were aware of another student’s suicide and/or had supported a suicidal student. Some participants expressed willingness to seek help for another, but far fewer were willing to seek help for themselves. Key reasons for the latter include stigma and a perceived need for self-reliance. Participants expressed greater willingness to seek help for another if they were not a close friend.
an article by Cate Curtisa (Department of Psychology, Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand) published in Journal of Youth Studies (online 28 July 2010)
Abstract
Youth suicide is an issue of international concern and the college population may have a considerably higher rate of suicidal behaviour than the general population, yet seeking help for suicidality is uncommon. This research sought to understand college students’ knowledge of suicidal behaviour and attitudes to help-seeking, in a New Zealand university. A mixed-method approach comprising a survey and interviews was utilised. Approximately one-fifth of participants had been suicidal, were aware of another student’s suicide and/or had supported a suicidal student. Some participants expressed willingness to seek help for another, but far fewer were willing to seek help for themselves. Key reasons for the latter include stigma and a perceived need for self-reliance. Participants expressed greater willingness to seek help for another if they were not a close friend.
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