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Suicide Presents Challenges For Social Work

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Suicide presents challenges for social work researchers as they seek answers and causative agents. Obviously, the victim is not available to provide answers to the many questions that suicide creates. However, there are other “victims” of suicide – family, friends, and colleagues that may be able to provide insights. The search for data typically begins with reviewing death certificates for cause of death. From there, a technique known as psychological autopsy is used to recreate the state of mind and health of the victim and any external environment causes of the suicide. The process is typically more qualitative in data gathering since one of the primary techniques involves interviews with individuals who knew the suicide victim. However, as pointed out by Rubin and Babbie, use of qualitative data does not rule out the use of quantative techniques to refine and bin the data sets (text p. 564-5). For example, age, gender, or socioeconomic data gathered during the interview process may lead to insights when the data are binned and searched for trends or distributions. This is also the case when medical records are available that may provide other insights to concomitant illnesses and quantative analyses are performed. Psychological autopsies have revealed that more than 90% of suicides involve coexisting mental disorders; predominantly mood and/or substance use disorders (Isometsä ET, 2001, para. 1). Medical records and physical autopsies may soon provide other

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