The social representations of suicide in France: An inter-regional study in Alsace and Brittany.
BACKGROUND
Suicide is a major worldwide public health issue. Various studies showed that individual attitudes toward suicide change in a region with high suicide rate. Attitudes are one of the components of a global and complex system: social representations (SRs).


OBJECTIVE
In France, the Brittany region has an abnormally high death rate due to suicides. Our research focuses on the SRs of suicide in this region. The hypothesis underlying this project is that suicide SRs are different between an area with a high suicide rate and a region less affected by suicide.


METHODS
A comparative study between the Brittany and Alsace regions, with the latter showing a statistically much lower suicide rate. The persons polled responded to a three-word free-association task around the question 'For you, suicide is …?' An analysis of word frequency and evocation rank was then carried out.


RESULTS
In confirmation of our hypothesis, SRs were different between Brittany and the control region.


CONCLUSIONS
The study's results open new avenues of research, specific to Brittany, in terms of the collective or individual effects of suicides, in terms of psycho-pathological conditions - essentially on depression, and in terms of training, on the stereotypes associated with suicide.
Université de Strasbourg, Faculté de Psychologie, Strasbourg, France and Centre Hospitalier des Pays de Morlaix, Morlaix, France etude_suicide_COB@yahoo.fr.
Céline
C
Kopp-Bigault
UFR de Medecine et Sciences de la Sante, Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France and Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire de Brest, France.
Michel
M
Walter
Université de Strasbourg, Faculté de Psychologie, Strasbourg, France.
Anne
A
Thevenot
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012919:Social Behavior; D013240:Stereotyping; D013405:Suicide / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
Brittany; France; Suicide; prevention; social representations