The construction of people in suicide prevention documents

Abstract

Suicide is a significant issue worldwide and despite comprehensive prevention activities, suicide stigma remains. To explore this issue, we used critical discourse analysis to examine how Australian suicide prevention documents (n = 8) constructed people living with thoughts of suicide. We found that risk and biomedical discourses dominated, with people experiencing suicide ideation constructed as dangerous, different, lacking coping skills, and burdensome. We propose that future suicide prevention activities address potentially stigmatizing language, broaden support and advocacy options, and meaningfully include people with lived experience of suicidal ideation or behavior in the development of policy and interventions.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge and thank Lyn Mahboub for guidance and contribution to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by Curtin University.