Considerations about suicide

Livia B. Ant and Luiz Carlos Formiga, authors of the especial article in this issue, "There is always a tomorrow," address the issue of suicide prevention, care and listening.

"Suicide is a public health problem, epidemiologically relevant and complex, for which there is no single cause or a single reason. (...) "Listening is as important as the physical examination the patient, this means being committed, interested and linked to the person, with all its complexity and vicissitude." (Formiga & Formiga)

When it comes to care we are referring to nursing or activities of that nature. But besides the care of the body, there is always customer care through listening. Thus, the nurse or the caregiver becomes involved with the whole being, while maintaining an appropriate distance in order not to hazard care, degenerating into too emotional involvement.

Nursing always sees the patient as a whole, as a biopsicosociocultural being. It is necessary to understand the sick human being in its wholeness. The nurse addresses the patient in a very intimate way, so often there may be an imbalance between professional approach and involvement with the patient. It is difficult to apply the distance to the one who needs care, for fear of nursing professional is to find the fine line between altruism and indifference. It is the reason so many nursing professionals get psychologically ill, because they do not to find the necessary help to deal with this relationship.

Listening is a process of technical and involvement to the individual and family. In this process, it seeks to derive data which shows to what extent are committed to planning and attempting suicide, because the family ordinarily has great interest in the genesis and development of suicidal ideation.

"Uncomfortable, in apparent contradiction with the hope that comes when we discover the immortal spirit it is the spirit’s quote in the prevalence of ideation, plan and attempt suicide." (Formiga & Formiga)

The spirit is not immune to despair, lack of faith, the distaste for life, the feeling of loneliness, hopelessness, and mental illnesses. Many do not commit suicide because they know the consequences. But that does not change the ideational framework of suicide and much less the causes which determine it. But even with all this in mind, some are afflicted with great despair that makes this knowledge as irrelevant.

"With the good results of the treatment, she will find that there is always tomorrow, we can resist, wait, due a beautiful day can arrive. There is always a tomorrow, for those who suffer, it does not cost to wait. And when it gets the person will then see that it was not in vain what happened. Hence to remember that evil distanced it can finally exclaim: I happy am!" (Formiga & Formiga)

It is essential to have family involvement in suicide prevention process, because only with the relatives aware it can make the potential suicide a patient, because it is necessary that he is taken to treatment. Once in treatment, the potential suicide becomes receptive to consolations ideas and expectation of better days.