Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:56:37.595Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Socio-Cultural Aspects of Attempted Suicide among Women in Trinidad and Tobago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Aggrey W. Burke
Aggrey W. Burke*
Affiliation:
St. Ann's Psychiatric Hospital, Trinidad and Tobago; Department of Psychiatry, University of Birmingham, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, B15 2TH
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The aim of the present study is to investigate probable socio-cultural determinants in the epidemiology of attempted suicide in Trinidad and Tobago. In an earlier paper the author described the clinical features which were noted among those patients who attempted suicide and were admitted to the only psychiatric unit in these islands (Burke, 1974). During the period before this unit was in full operation other workers had noted a tendency for suicide attempts to be made more frequently by women of East Indian origin, who most often reside in rural areas, than among the more urban African ones (Haynes, 1966; Roberts and Russell, 1969). Since those studies a suicide prevention service has been established which admits all patients who attempt suicide. The present study was intended to re-investigate the ethnic sub-cultural findings which occur in the new service. It was hypothesized that there was no difference in the distribution of attempted suicide, between the two sub-cultural groups.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 125 , Issue 587 , October 1974 , pp. 374 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1974 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annual Statistical Digest (1969). Government of Trinidad and Tobago. Central Statistical Office. No. 19.Google Scholar
Beaubrun, M. H. (1967) Treatment of alcoholism in Trinidad and Tobago, 1956–65. Brit. J. Psychiatry, 113, 643–58.Google Scholar
Burke, A. W. (1974) Clinical aspects of attempted suicide among women in Trinidad and Tobago, Brit. J. Psychiatry, 125, 175–6.Google Scholar
Despres, L. A. (1967) Cultural Pluralism and Nationalist Politics in British Guiana. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.Google Scholar
Haynes, R. (1966) Attempted Suicide in Trinidad and Tobago: A Preliminary Study. Trinidad: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University Rof the West Indies.Google Scholar
Hendin, H. (1969) Black suicide. Arch. gen. Psychiatry, 21, 407–22.Google Scholar
Quarterly Economic Report (Jan.–Mar.) (1972) Government of Trinidad and Tobago, Central Statistical Office.Google Scholar
Roberts, A. C. & Russell, N. C. (1969) Social sequelae of suicide attempts. Newsletter of the Caribbean Psychiatric Association, 1, 15.Google Scholar
Smith, M. G. (1965) The Plural Society in the British West Indies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tuckman, J., Youngman, W. F., and Beulah, M. B. (1962) Attempted suicide by adults. Publ. Health Reports, 77, 605–14.Google Scholar
Weissman, M. M., Paykel, E. S., French, N., Fox, K. & Prussoff, B. (1973) Suicide attempts in an urban community, 1955 and 1970. Social Psychiatry, 8, 82–91.Google Scholar
Yap, P. M. (1958) Suicide in Hong Kong. J. ment. Sci., 104, 266–301.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.