Citation

Choo CC, Ho RC, Burton AAD. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2018; 15(4): e15040809.

Affiliation

School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth 6102, Australia. andre.burton@postgrad.curtin.edu.au.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph15040809

PMID

29677141

Abstract

One important dynamic risk factor for suicide assessment includes suicide precipitant. This exploratory study used a qualitative paradigm to look into the themes surrounding precipitants for suicide attempts in Singapore. Medical records related to suicide attempters who were admitted to the emergency department of a large teaching hospital in Singapore over a three year period were subjected to analysis. A total of 666 cases were examined (69.2% females; 63.8% Chinese, 15% Malays, 15.8% Indians), ages ranged from 10 years old to 85 years old (Mean = 29.7, Standard Deviation = 16.1). The thematic analysis process that was applied to the textual data elicited key concepts labelled as Relationship issues, Financial strain, Socio-legal-academic—environmental stress, and Physical and mental illness and pain. Interpreted with other recent local research on suicide attempters in Singapore, the findings have implications for informing suicide interventions.

Language: en

Keywords

Asia; stress; suicide attempts; suicide precipitants; thematic analysis