The Benefits of Robust Debate About the Place of Qualitative Research in Suicide Prevention

Abstract

It is important to give voice to people with lived experience of suicidal behaviour, but as with all narrative data, insider accounts raise methodological and interpretive challenges. A key question is that of how to work with narratives about suicide in a way that affirms both the value and the limitations of the data, so that qualitative evidence may responsibly be used to inform real-world interventions. Scholars who claim that insights gained through qualitative research have consequences for suicide prevention, should be able to provide evidence for this claim. There may be a contradiction between claiming to work within a paradigm that rejects ideas about linear cause-and-effect thinking in suicidology, while simultaneously asserting that insights from qualitative research will have a cause-effect impact on the challenging real-world practice of suicide prevention. Robust methodological debate will strengthen the field of qualitative suicidology.

‘They Sent Me Out to School, and I Came Back with a Baby’: Perinatal Women’s Experiences of Biographical Disruption and Nonfatal Suicidal Behaviour

“…It remains to be established, through rigorous well controlled clinical and pragmatic trials, if these concrete systemic strategies can reduce risk of suicidal behaviour in real world conditions. Indeed, it would be an error to assume that any insights gained from first-person accounts of suicidal behaviour automatically translate into effective suicide prevention strategies (Bantjes & Swartz, 2019, 2020). Nonetheless our data suggest that this might be an effective approach to maternal suicide prevention in resource constrained environments.…”

Community Perspectives on Social Influences on Suicide Within a Native American Reservation

“…The model is conceptual rather than causal in nature, and the perceived potential risk and protective factors should be studied further in this community. Narrative accounts or perceptions of nonfatal suicidal behavior are created within a very particular context and influenced by a host of factors including our perceptions and memory processes (Bantjes & Swartz, 2019, 2020). Second, we caution that the experiences of the participants in the study might differ from those who declined participation.…”

“…Therefore, in this study, we aimed to further inform the model by contributing local perspectives about the broad social influences that may contribute to NA youth suicide in this specific context. Improved understanding of such influences from the community perspective may yield new insights and hypotheses about NA youth suicide in this and potentially other communities and thereby generate new opportunities for confirmatory quantitative analysis, as well as potential intervention and prevention targets (Bantjes & Swartz, 2020).…”

Stakeholder insights into implementing a systems-based suicide prevention program in regional and rural Tasmanian communities

“…Interviews and focus groups allow for deeper inquiry into participants’ experiences with the Trial, allowing theoretically relevant information to emerge from the data. Similar qualitative approaches are commonly used in suicidology to give voice to participants, and in particular stakeholders, community members and people with lived experience of suicide [ 38 , 39 ]. As previously mentioned, a PAR approach was utilised throughout all stages of the evaluation, as a reciprocal process of action and reflection, to guide the design and conduct of evaluation activities [ 25 , 26 ].…”