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OBJECTIVES: This review aims to evaluate and synthesize quantitative and qualitative findings on perceived control and value placed on control within the context of suicidal ideation or nonfatal suicidal behaviors in older adults. METHOD: A comprehensive literature search was completed in June 2022, October 2022, and November 2023. Included studies focused on perceived control or value placed on control and on suicidal ideation or nonfatal suicidal behavior. Studies were published in English and included older adults (≥ 60 years) in separate analyses. Studies focusing on self-efficacy were excluded. RESULTS: Twelve studies with 10 unique samples of 1487 total participants from eight countries were assessed. Quantitative studies indicated that perceived control and value placed on control are significant correlates of suicidal ideation and nonfatal suicidal behaviors, while qualitative studies highlighted that individuals who survive suicide attempts often specify decreased perceived control as a reason for their attempts. CONCLUSION: Results of this review indicate that perceived control and value placed on control are relevant variables when studying suicidal ideation and nonfatal suicidal behavior. This conclusion should be considered preliminary. Future research should examine heterogeneous samples, adopt gold standard assessments, and assess covariates in the associations.

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First-person narratives of suicidal behavior may provide novel insights into how individuals with lived experience of suicide understand and narrate their behavior. Our aim was to explore the narratives of young men hospitalized following nonfatal suicidal behavior (NFSB), in order to understand how young suicidal men construct and understand their actions. Data were collected via narrative interviews with 14 men (aged 18-34 years) admitted to hospital following an act of NFSB in Cape Town, South Africa. Narrative analysis was used to analyze the data. Two dominant narratives emerged in which participants drew on tropes of the "great escape" and "heroic resistance," performing elements of hegemonic masculinity in the way they narrated their experiences. Participants position themselves as rational heroic agents and present their suicidal behavior as goal-directed action to solve problems, assert control, and enact resistance. This dominant narrative is incongruent with the mainstream biomedical account of suicide as a symptom of psychopathology. The young men also articulated two counter-narratives, in which they deny responsibility for their actions and position themselves as defeated, overpowered, wary, and unheroic. The findings lend support to the idea that there is not only one narrative of young men's suicide, and that competing and contradictory narratives can be found even within a dominant hyper-masculine account of suicidal behavior. Gender-sensitive suicide prevention strategies should not assume that all men share a common understanding of suicide. Suicide can be enacted as both a performance of masculinity and as a resistance to hegemonic gender roles.

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Responding to the limitations of dominant biomedical quantitative approaches to suicide research, scholars have called for qualitative research documenting first-person narratives of suicide to gain access to the "true experts." This raises questions about what we can learn about suicide from first-person narratives. In this article, we critically examine the practice of analyzing first-person narratives of nonfatal suicidal behavior to make truth claims about the causes of suicide. We make explicit the assumptions that underlie the interpretation of first-person narratives and draw on research within cognitive neuropsychology and social psychology to explore how memory processes, perception, and attribution errors might influence the way individuals narrate their experience. We employ literature from narrative theory and life-writing to argue that narratives about nonfatal suicidal behavior are at best partial accounts which are constructed within very particular circumstances, making it impossible to interpret them as revealing the true causes of suicide.

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BACKGROUND: Despite the progress of positive psychology, current knowledge regarding suicide protective factors is limited. Trait gratitude (a tendency to experience gratitude in daily life) may protect against suicidal ideation and behavior. AIMS: The study tested a model of causal effects among gratitude, religiosity, reasons for living, coping, and social support as predictors of suicidal ideation, suicide threats, and suicide attempts after controlling for depression and stressful life events. METHOD: A sample of 165 college students were administered measures of gratitude, religiosity, reasons for living, social support, coping skills, stress, and depression. The study assessed lifetime and current suicidal ideation as well as lifetime suicide threat and attempt. RESULTS: Both gratitude and religiosity, along with social support, coping skills, and reasons for living, correlated negatively with prior suicidal ideation, but not with prior attempted suicide. After controlling for risk factor (depression and stress), the impact of gratitude and religiosity was no longer statistically significant. CONCLUSION: Further research could help understand the role of positive emotions and human strengths, such as gratitude, in preventing and alleviating suicidal ideation and behavior.

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Recently, there have been calls for the decriminalization (or depenalization) of nonfatal suicidal behavior (attempted suicide) in Ghana, India, Uganda, and other societies that currently criminalize nonfatal suicidal behavior. Despite this, there is a dearth of systematic studies that examine the extent, nature, and characteristics of attempted suicide prosecutions in countries that currently criminalize nonfatal suicidal behavior. The current study, therefore, explores the phenomenon of criminal prosecution and punishment for suicide attempters in Ghana, one among several countries where nonfatal suicidal behavior is a crime. Drawing from data extracted from local Ghanaian print and electronic news media articles, the study examines the sociodemographic characteristics of suicide attempt survivors, the patterns of nonfatal suicidal behavior, as well as the criminal justice outcomes of the criminal prosecutions. The findings indicate that the majority of defendants pled guilty to or were found guilty of the charge and sentenced to penalties ranging from monetary fines to incarceration. The results are discussed with regard to their implications for reducing nonfatal suicidal behavior in Ghana.

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