[The structure of suicide notes].

Abstract

Introduction: This research aims to analyze the structure of suicide notes. Based on our results, suicide notes consist of seven main, consecutive structural elements. We named these elements functions. The order of variations of the functions may change, but their consecutive nature shows constancy. With the help of these functions, every suicide note can be written with a simple formula. Method: For the analysis, we used the qualitative analysis method and coding technique of grounded theory on 160 complete suicide notes published in the Hungarian press. In this catalog of suicide notes, we collected data based on the age, gender, year, method and place of the suicide(s), as well as the functions we developed for the analysis. Results: With our method, we were able to write down and analyze all suicide notes. The functions of suicide notes show a gender difference: the most used functions for men are different from the most used functions for women. Conclusion: Every suicide note can be written with a simple formula. Based on our results, we discovered a potentially significant difference in the structure of farewell letters for fatal and non-fatal suicides. The structure of farewell letters for non-fatal suicides does not necessarily follow the rule of consecutive nature of functions: in our view, there is a demonstrable structural difference between the suicide notes of parasuicides and completed suicides. Orv Hetil. 2024; 165(45): 1763–1771.