Meaning Reconstruction of Female Suicide Using Grounded Theory: A Case Study of Immolated Women Hospitalized in Isfahan Burn Hospital

Suicide and attempted suicide have been declared significant public health and an antisocial behavioral issue at the World Health Organization (WHO) Summit in 1996. In addition to personal and family losses, this phenomenon is also considered a social loss. Suicide attempts aim to consciously harm oneself when he/she becomes more anxious, aggressive, and incapable of communicating socially. According to the definition provided by WHO, suicide attempt is an activity, in which a person intentionally and without the intervention of others performs an unusual behavior, such as doing self-harm or eating a substance more than the amount prescribed for treatment and aims to achieve the changes he/she expects. The rate of suicide attempts is 10-40 times higher than suicide that leads to death, while this rate is increasing due to the complexity of interactions and communications in all human societies. Although suicide attempt is as old as human life, what has made it a problem today is a significant increase in suicide statistics, which has turned it from a personal anomaly into a social problem. Due to the condemnation of suicide in some societies, access to accurate statistics is complex and the actual number of suicide cases is not usually reported in official statistics. However, in most countries where information is available, suicide is among the top 10 causes of death in all years of life. In some countries, suicide is one of the first 3 causes of death between the ages of 15 and 34 (Hosseini, 1999: 138). The published statistics suggest that suicide is more than an individual anomaly and has become a complex social problem. If we consider any social harm as a social germ, it can be said that each embryo occurs only in an environment where it is possible to grow and grow. Therefore, it seems that this damage is also in a society where It can manifest and grow in family, social, and economic contexts, etc.. Consequently, it is necessary to process research in this field to accurately and comprehensively understand this problem and provide practical and valuable solutions and treatments.

This study aimed to identify the causes and consequences of suicide in the semantic system of suicidal women. The method used to achieve the above goal was based on the grounded theory. The statistical population consisted of 18 self-immolated women, who were hospitalized in Imam Musa Kazem Burn Hospital in Isfahan selected by purposeful and theoretical sampling. The data were collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed by the triple coding technique. The results comprised 16 concepts, based on which 6 main categories emerged: violence, incompatibility and marital conflict, lack of socioeconomic capital, disagreement in the kinship network, drug abuse, and social isolation. By combining the mentioned types, "women's inability" was identified as the main category.

The theoretical and empirical data showed that the issue of women's powerless and critical inability and the attempt to empower themselves was among the essential factors in creating and perpetuating violence in families. Violence against women is more than just a private matter and is rooted in the depths of cultural and social practices. Social, economic, and legal affiliation has historically put women in an inferior position, making them vulnerable to male violence. Therefore, increasing women's power and empowering them in all aspects can be essential for eliminating domestic violence. There are also several factors involved in creating marital conflicts, including imposed marriages and disinterality in spouses, ongoing family disputes, misunderstanding, depression, and mental disorders resulting from family problems and diseases. Of course, it should be noted that depression can be both the cause and effect of incompatibility and family disputes. Also, lack of communication skills, such as effective dialogue, problem-solving, and confrontation skills, should be added to these factors.In addition, economic problems, such as poverty, unemployment, and low incomes, exacerbate and strengthen family disputes. Financial pressures reduce people's resilience and thus increase family conflicts. On the other hand, being deprived of socialcapital as an indicator of family support causes feelings of insecurity, frustration, and incompatibility with the existing conditions during being involved in the problems.Disagreement in the kinship network is another vital factor for differences between couples. The findings showed that most of the subjects not only did not express the role of family positively when their family disputes occurred, but also stated that their families had exacerbated the differences between them with their wrong solutions and suggestions. The cultural and social status of some countries, including Iran, is such that there is a great deal of dependence between the prominent family and thesubordinate family (after children’s marriage). Although the prominent family can effectively support the subordinate family, its misplaced involvement sometimes may lead to family problems.Subculture of drug use was one of the other categories of this study. Women, who have addicted spouses, have many problems both socially and in terms of personality and family. Psychological nature and issues of communication with others, lack of anger management, communication disturbances, revelation of anger and violence, reprehensible and degrading treatment of society family, lack of social support, and uncertainty about legal protection of women with addicted spouses are among the most critical social issues of women with addicted spouses (Mohammadifar et al., 2010). Another major complication of a husband's addiction is women’s suicidal thoughts and attempted suicide. In this study, husband's addiction and behaviors were the essential factors in several women’s suicide attempts. It can be said that living with an addicted spouse as an abnormal social factor provides the ground for several problems, while women's resilience decreases and their suicide attempts increase with the continuation of this situation.Finally, several factors are involved in isolated individuals, especially women. These factors include violence, deprivation of an efficient support network, wife addiction, imposed marriage, family disputes and conflicts, inappropriate patterns of action in the kinship network, etc. With the continuation of these conditions, the person feels helpless and finds himself/herself without a supporter. Instead of solving the problem, he/she tries to remove the face of the problem and finally attempts to commit suicide as the only way of escaping from human suffering.In this study, there was a strong bond between the extracted categories and the lack of empowerment among female victims. Violence, marital incompatibility, imposed marriage, and involvement of those around them were clear signs of the women's inability to manage their lives. These factors stemmed from the women's disability and lack of independence. Lack of agency as an essential element of empowerment had deprived the women from any choices and turned them into biological and unproductive beings, who had to finally embrace destiny. The right to have education, employment, acceptance, and collective support for this situation, which is subject to the first element of equity, i.e. resources, was also evident in some other categories. Being illiterate or not having primary education, as well as housekeeping (non-employment) had no consequence other than lack of awareness, poverty, and lack of support from families. In such a situation, the women were unwittingly possessed and merely transformed into service recipients. In addition, wife addiction and depression were also related to the women's inability. When a person lacks independence, he/she has no choice or has no control over the situation; he/she cannot naturally fall from the trap of high-risk spaces. In such circumstances, the victim inevitably experienced Gautagoni's methods of isolation and depression because he/she did not see a way out of the resulting situation and thus tries to eliminate the problem by inflicting self-harm.In the meantime, there could remain only one way: sacrifice. Suicide was the ultimate choice for the women in such a situation with tpurposes first, escaping the adversity of life and, in a sense, detaching from the world and second, deadly flipping those around for change.