The Benefits of Robust Debate About the Place of Qualitative Research in Suicide Prevention

Abstract

It is important to give voice to people with lived experience of suicidal behaviour, but as with all narrative data, insider accounts raise methodological and interpretive challenges. A key question is that of how to work with narratives about suicide in a way that affirms both the value and the limitations of the data, so that qualitative evidence may responsibly be used to inform real-world interventions. Scholars who claim that insights gained through qualitative research have consequences for suicide prevention, should be able to provide evidence for this claim. There may be a contradiction between claiming to work within a paradigm that rejects ideas about linear cause-and-effect thinking in suicidology, while simultaneously asserting that insights from qualitative research will have a cause-effect impact on the challenging real-world practice of suicide prevention. Robust methodological debate will strengthen the field of qualitative suicidology.