Are Nonfatal Suicide Attempts Instrumental in Achieving Personal and Interpersonal Goals?

This study focused on the well-being of the survivors of suicide attempts and the well-being of their interpersonal relationships after the attempt. The data came from a sample of 392 college students from 10 Muslim majority countries who reported having attempted suicide in the last 4 years. Suicide was conceptualized as a goal-directed behavior embedded in a sociocultural context and motivated by personal or interpersonal goals. We tested a process that linked culturally shaped self-construal to the postsuicidal personal and interpersonal well-being. We posited that this process would operate through the attitudes towards suicide, motives for suicide, the strength of the intention to die. Our model indicated that the acceptability of suicide was positively associated with escape motives, and this association was even stronger for the individuals with interdependent self-construals. Escape motives were negatively associated with postsuicidal personal and interpersonal well-being, but communication motives were not associated with these outcomes. We also found evidence that having an interdependent self-construal might be beneficial for postsuicidal personal and interpersonal well-being. Our results further suggested that the postsuicidal personal and interpersonal well-being of highly interdependent individuals may depend on the interpretation of their act of suicide by their close others.

Associations of religiosity, attitudes towards suicide and religious coping with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in 11 muslim countries.

OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the associations of religiosity, religious coping and suicide acceptance to suicide ideation and attempts in 7427 young adults affiliating with Islam from 11 Muslim countries. METHOD: A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. We used F and χ2 tests and correlation analyses to report descriptive statistics. Multi-group path models with (i) a zero-inflated Poisson distribution and, (ii) a Binomial distribution were used to model the number of occurrences of suicidal ideation, and occurrence of a suicide attempt, respectively. RESULTS: Religiosity was negatively associated with acceptability of suicide, but it was positively related to punishment after death across the 11 countries. Religiosity was negatively associated with ever experiencing suicidal ideation, both directly and indirectly through its association with attitudes towards suicide, especially the belief in acceptability of suicide. Neither positive nor negative religious coping were related to suicidal ideation. However, religiosity was negatively related to suicide attempts among those who experienced suicidal ideation at least once. This association was mediated through the belief in acceptability of suicide and religious coping. Negative religious coping was positively associated with suicide attempts probably because it weakened the protective effects of religiosity. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study suggest that the effects of religiosity in the suicidal process operate through attitudes towards suicide. We therefore conclude that clinical assessment as well as research in suicidology may benefit from paying due attention to attitudes towards suicide.