Physical Illness, Psychiatric Illness, and the Acceptability of Suicide

Abstract

The present study assessed whether attitudes toward suicide vary as a function of the type of illness that precipitates the suicide. The participants in the study were 455 college students who were administered a questionnaire consisting of one of seven scenarios describing a fictitious man who has decided to kill himself, as well as a series of evaluative questions about the man and his decision. The man was portrayed as suffering from chronic, severe depression in five of the scenarios (the scenarios differed in their descriptions of the depression); from chronic, severe physical pain in the sixth scenario; and from terminal bone cancer in the seventh. Evaluations of the suicide were most favorable when it occurred in response to terminal physical illness, less favorable in response to chronic, non-terminal physical illness, and least favorable in response to chronic psychiatric illness.