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With & Without Notes

Differences In Characteristics Between Suicide Victims Who Left Notes Or Not

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Abstract

Background

Suicide notes (SN) are one of markers of the severity of a suicide attempt and are said to provide a valuable insight into the thinking of suicide victims before the fatal act [Shah, A., De, T., 1998. Suicide and the elderly. Int. J. Psychiat. Clin Pract. 2, 3–18]. To examine whether suicide victims who wrote notes (note writers: NW) differ from those who did not, we investigated the characteristics of a sample of more than 5000 Japanese suicides using multiple logistic regression analysis.

Methods

For all suicide victims (5161 cases), we examined the following information: gender, age, suicide method, reason for suicide, marital status, residential status, history of psychiatric disorders, previous suicidal behavior, physical disease, and content of suicide notes.

Results

Mean incidence of NW was 30.1% (male: 29.7%, female: 30.8%). NW in Japan had the following characteristics; higher proportion in female and living alone,...

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Relationship Themes in Suicide Notes

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Years ago I worked in a psychiatric emergency room in a large metropolitan hospital. My job consisted of evaluating a steady stream of patients to determine whether they should be hospitalized or sent elsewhere.

I saw people in the throes of mania, psychosis and suicidal depression. I still remember the man who asked if I was a witch who would place a spell on him. And the woman who came barreling at me down the hallway, warning, “You best get out of my way, or I’m going to go Ninja Turtle on your ass!” I remember the man who swallowed six bedsprings in a suicide attempt. And countless others with bandaged wrists, bruised necks, and broken souls. I learned a lot about the breadth and depth of human suffering.

One day I was waxing philosophical about suicide with one of the charge...

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