Exploring the Suicide Experience in the Meaning System of Women who Attempted Suicide in Kermanshah City Using a Qualitative Approach

Suicide has been increasing in the world and in Iran over the past decades. Although the suicide rate in Iran is lower than the global average, its rate in some provinces, including Kermanshah, is much higher than the global and national average. Also, the suicide rate is higher among women than men. The main purpose of this article is to represent and construct an indigenous model of the suicide process in the meaning system of women in Kermanshah.

This study was conducted using a qualitative approach based on grounded theory method. The data was obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 14 women who had attempted suicide.

In this study, the experience of suicide in women's lives is reconstructed in the form of a meaningful and confrontational experience. The experience of suicide is formed in the process of its development during the stages of acquaintance, internalization and action. The most important reasons for suicide are the concentration of unfulfilled wishes, feelings of deprivation and frustration, failure to complete one’s identity, feelings of disruption in interaction with others and feelings of a narrow domain life. Gender-oriented events and the role of moderators are the most important intervening conditions in the suicide experience. The obscure area, with its complexity and ambiguity, forms the context of the suicide experience, and women have reacted to it during this experience by using strategies such as theatrical action, endowment action, and protest action.

Accordingly, the study suggestion is field-based intervention strategies.