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Socio-Cultural Aspects of Attempted Suicide among Women in Trinidad and Tobago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Aggrey W. Burke
Aggrey W. Burke*
Affiliation:
St. Ann's Psychiatric Hospital, Trinidad and Tobago; Department of Psychiatry, University of Birmingham, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, B15 2TH
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Extract

The aim of the present study is to investigate probable socio-cultural determinants in the epidemiology of attempted suicide in Trinidad and Tobago. In an earlier paper the author described the clinical features which were noted among those patients who attempted suicide and were admitted to the only psychiatric unit in these islands (Burke, 1974). During the period before this unit was in full operation other workers had noted a tendency for suicide attempts to be made more frequently by women of East Indian origin, who most often reside in rural areas, than among the more urban African ones (Haynes, 1966; Roberts and Russell, 1969). Since those studies a suicide prevention service has been established which admits all patients who attempt suicide. The present study was intended to re-investigate the ethnic sub-cultural findings which occur in the new service. It was hypothesized that there was no difference in the distribution of attempted suicide, between the two sub-cultural groups.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 125 , Issue 587 , October 1974 , pp. 374 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

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