Citation

Witte TK, Correia CJ, Angarano D. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 2013; 43(2): 125-138.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sltb.12000

PMID

23278546

Abstract

Veterinarians have an increased risk for suicide compared with the general population, yet there is little consensus regarding why this might be. We hypothesized that veterinarians become relatively fearless about death due to their repeated exposure to euthanasia. Accordingly, we predicted that there would be a positive relationship between experience with euthanasia and fearlessness about death, due to emotional habituation to the process of euthanasia. In a sample of 130 veterinary students, results conformed to expectation and indicated that the relationship with fearlessness about death was specific to euthanasia and did not generalize to experience with surgery or necropsy.

Language: en