Suicide notes are the only personal interpretation evidence of his action causes among all possible information sources about suicide.

To improve quality of suicide prevention by the mean of suicide notes analysis.

Objects of the study: 77 suicide notes of Belarusian citizens who had committed suicide and corresponding prosecutor's reports.

Evaluation of the formal visual characteristics of notes and demographic data, content analysis (note addressee, stated reason, manifested affect, dominant theme and direction of the charges).

The mean age of the sample was 43.8 years, 87% were male. 75% of the notes had specific addressee, 32.2% of them were directed to a spouse. In 55.8% of notes the main theme was “apology”, in 50.7% it was 'inability to stand the pain/illness “, but the main emotion displayed by half of cases was “guilt”. The vast majority of notes with the theme “charge” belonged to men (92.6%), 60% of these charges were directed to their wives. Women most frequently reported such reasons as “avoiding” (80%) and “self-punishment '(40%), men - a “protest/revenge” and “coercion”- in 32.8% and 23.9% respectively. Notes of women were characterized by higher volume, accuracy, consistency, and literacy. For persons aged 26–35 years the main causes of suicide were “protest/revenge” and “coercion”, and for those at the age of 66–75 years - “avoidance” and “rational denial'.

Age and gender tendencies of suicide causes should be considered in planning the suicide prevention strategies in different age groups.