Article Sidebar
Published:
Feb 9, 2023Article Details
http://www.sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/pages/view/policies#part_4
Copyright
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose.
AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
Identifying a probable suicide cluster in an acute care psychiatric hospital in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
Abstract
Background: Two young male patients who were diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis committed suicide in a psychiatric hospital in South Africa within a month of each other. The psychiatric nurses working in the hospital had never before had to deal with a similar trauma of suicide cluster.
Aim: To assess the psychiatric nurses’ experiences of suicide cluster in an inpatient psychiatric setting.
Setting: A psychiatric hospital in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
Method: A qualitative design was used. The research population consisted of psychiatric nurses who were purposively selected. Data were gathered using in-depth interviews where the participants narrated their experiences of the incidents. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and the data was coded using descriptive and explanatory codes. Trustworthiness was ensured. Ethical principles of justice, autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence were ensured.
Results: An attempt was made to compare the suicides of two patients with the characteristics of cluster suicide to determine if clustering took place. Two young males committed suicide in an institutional setting within a month of each other. Other characteristics present included using the same method, in the same venue and in the same unit. They had similar educational and social backgrounds. The second victim knew the first victim and was aware of what happened.
Conclusion: When the two events are analysed together it would seem as if clustering did occur. The suicide victims knew each other and victim number 2 was aware of the facts of the first suicide. They were in their early 20’s, were mentally ill and committed suicide in the same site, using the same method and were both institutionalised at the time. Members of the mental healthcare team should be made aware of the characteristics of clustering so that when a suicide attempt occurs in a place where mentally-ill individuals are cared for, measures can be put in place to prevent another patient from copying such an event.
