Killing the Beast Within: Woman Battering and Female Suicidality (From Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women's Health, P 99-120, 1996, Evan Stark and Anne Flitcraft -- See NCJ- 161219)

• NCJ Number: 161223
• Author(s): E Stark; A Flitcraft
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 22 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

To investigate the association between abuse and attempted suicide, this study reviewed the medical records of women who came to the emergency service at Yale-New Haven Hospital as attempted suicides over a 1-year period.

Abstract

A woman was identified as a suicide attempt if her presenting complaint was suicide attempt or included an intentionally self-inflicted injury or an attempted overdose. Cases in which no self-destructive intent appeared involved or in which suicidal ideation or threat was not accompanied by suicidal behavior were excluded. Using these criteria, 176 women were identified as having attempted suicide at least once during the study year. The full medical records of these women were accessed and reviewed for pertinent demographic, medical, and obstetrical information as well as information about all suicide attempts in the patient's history, including precipitating events, the method and context of each attempt, the timing of the event in relation to reported injury episodes, and relevant medical social service and psychiatric responses. The technique used to determine the probability of abuse was the adult trauma history screen. Chi- square tests were used to find in what ways battered women who attempted suicide differed from nonbattered suicide attempters in terms of demographic background, nature and frequency of the suicide attempt, pregnancy status, and response elicited from medical personnel. The precipitating complaint and the proximity of an abusive injury were used to assess a possible causal link of battering to women's suicide attempts. The findings clearly implicate battering, an ongoing criminal and life-threatening expression of women's oppression, as a major determinant of female suicide attempts, particularly among African-American women. Only more detailed case analyses could rule out a major causal role for substance abuse or predisposing psychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, such a role is contraindicated by the frequency with which marital conflict is a precipitating complaint and the proximity of suicide attempts to prior episodes of assault. Implications of the findings for intervention are discussed. 3 tables