Structuring Roles and Gender Identities within Families Explaining Suicidal Behaviour in South India

Abstract

Background: This paper examines the social structures, culture, gendered roles and their implications for suicidal behaviour in South India. Exploring the cultural process within the structures of family and society to understand suicide and attempted suicide from the perspectives of survivors, mental health professionals and traditional healers have not been achieved in the existing suicide related research studies conducted in India so far. Aims: This study aimed to explore the cultural implications of attempted suicide by examining the survivors' life stories, their perceptions and service providers' interpretations of problem situation. Methods: A qualitative design was used drawing on constant comparison method and thematic analysis. The analysis was underpinned by the theoretical concepts of Bourdieu's work. In-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen survivors of attempted suicide, eight mental health professionals and eight traditional healers from Southern India. Results: The study found interactions among visible and invisible fields such as faith, power, control, culture, family, religion and social systems to have strengthened the disparities in gender and role structures within families, societies and impacted survivors' dispositions to situations. Conclusions: The role of culture in causing suicide and attempted suicide is explained by unravelling the negative impact of interacting cultural and structural mechanisms.