Studying suicide notes can help with prevention, research suggests
TORONTO — Powerlessness, battling with mental illness and self-blame are common themes found in suicide notes, according to a study from Canadian researchers that recommends health-care professionals target those issues in treatment and prevention programs.
The research, published this week in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, aimed to find patterns of thinking that contribute to suicide and make recommendations to target those patterns in treatment.
“We know a lot about peoples’ experiences with suicide, but it’s very rare to be able to get into a unique window into the mindset of people who die by suicide,” said Dr. Juveria Zaheer, who co-authored the study and is a clinician scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
The study, conducted by researchers at CAMH and the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, examined 290 suicide notes that were then narrowed down to 36 notes that explicitly referenced mental illness and mental health care.