Social factors and Australian farmer suicide: a qualitative study

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Author(s)
Perceval, Meg
Ross, Victoria
Kolves, Kairi
Reddy, Prasuna
De Leo, Diego
Year published
2018
Metadata
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Background Farmers and farm workers have been recognised as a group at high risk of suicide in Australia; however this risk is not without geographic and demographic variation. This study aims to identify and better understand the complex interplay of risk and protective factors surrounding farmer suicide, with an emphasis on social influences, so as to inform tailored and effective suicide prevention initiatives. Methods Focus groups were conducted in three diverse sites across two states in Australia with men and women separately to gain perceptions about suicide risk and protective factors and attitudes towards suicide ...
View more >Background Farmers and farm workers have been recognised as a group at high risk of suicide in Australia; however this risk is not without geographic and demographic variation. This study aims to identify and better understand the complex interplay of risk and protective factors surrounding farmer suicide, with an emphasis on social influences, so as to inform tailored and effective suicide prevention initiatives. Methods Focus groups were conducted in three diverse sites across two states in Australia with men and women separately to gain perceptions about suicide risk and protective factors and attitudes towards suicide and help seeking. The three communities in each state represented areas with a suicide rate similar to, above, and below the state average. The communities were also diverse in their population, types of farming, geographic location, distance from and access to services. There were a total of 33 female and 30 male participants. Results Qualitative analysis indicated three major interrelated social factors: (1) changing rural communities, (2) community attitudes and stigma and (3) relationship issues. Conclusions The biopsycho-ecological model is considered useful to better understand and address social, as well as individual and environmental factors, pertaining to farmer suicide.
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View more >Background Farmers and farm workers have been recognised as a group at high risk of suicide in Australia; however this risk is not without geographic and demographic variation. This study aims to identify and better understand the complex interplay of risk and protective factors surrounding farmer suicide, with an emphasis on social influences, so as to inform tailored and effective suicide prevention initiatives. Methods Focus groups were conducted in three diverse sites across two states in Australia with men and women separately to gain perceptions about suicide risk and protective factors and attitudes towards suicide and help seeking. The three communities in each state represented areas with a suicide rate similar to, above, and below the state average. The communities were also diverse in their population, types of farming, geographic location, distance from and access to services. There were a total of 33 female and 30 male participants. Results Qualitative analysis indicated three major interrelated social factors: (1) changing rural communities, (2) community attitudes and stigma and (3) relationship issues. Conclusions The biopsycho-ecological model is considered useful to better understand and address social, as well as individual and environmental factors, pertaining to farmer suicide.
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Journal Title
BMC Public Health
Volume
18
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Subject
Health services and systems
Public health
Farmer suicide
Stigma
Community attitudes
Help-seeking
Relationships
Social support
Rural communities
Biopsycho-ecological