An unobtrusive important issue in the world, female suicide: Understanding geography of suicide for suicide prevention policy (case of Turkey)

Abstract

Suicide is a complex structure and also affects the families of the person who commit suicide, health care professionals and society. Suicide shows large differences depending on the time, region, age level, gender and race. Suicides are chaotic events because a little confusion on one of each these factors may cause a significant change that leads to severe consequences. Chaos theorists believe that the first step to deal with chaos is to understand it. Therefore, all aspects of suicide need to be understood in detail in order to prevent it. Strategies to prevent suicide can be developed through searching and understanding the suicide geography. In this chapter, the spatial pattern of female suicide is examined with suicide maps. With suicide maps, the aim is to clarify the spatial alteration of the deaths caused by female suicide, to help in focusing on female suicide, to increase the awareness of the specific regions and groups that have a high risk and so to guide the ones who are dealing with decreasing the death ratios, public health experts and decision makers. © 2014 by IGI Global. All rights reserved.