Jonathan’s Voice part funds research into male suicide that is being undertaken at the University of Glasgow Suicidal Behavioural Laboratory under the direction of Prof Rory O’Connor. Susie Bennett is the researcher on the project and provides regular updates on the progress of her work. An extract from Susie’s most recent one is below. Jonathan’s Voice is very pleased with the way the research is progressing and with the commitment and dedication of Susie.
I have completed my research and have now sat my viva. I am pleased that I only have some minor corrections to make.
A third paper from the PhD has been accepted for publication. It is a study of men’s barriers to accessing professional support and will be published in ‘Current Psychology’. I also have a final study from the PhD, which is out for review with the Journal of Men’s Studies.
I was very pleased to be invited to give a seminar as part of the Karolinska Institute’s ‘Suicide Seminar’ series. 400 people attended the talk. You can listen to it here.
I’m now looking forward to starting the work to survey and interview health professionals. This is the first stage towards towards turning the outcomes of my research into resources.
I am delighted to share that we recently accomplished two major milestones with two of our studies accepted for publication in academic journals. One of these studies is a comprehensive systematic review spanning two decades of research on male suicide, while the other focuses on developing an agenda for male suicide research priorities.
Getting research published in academic journals can be a long and demanding process. However, it is essential to ensuring that our work impacts the field. The rigorous peer review process in academic publishing guarantees that experts critically evaluate work, providing valuable feedback. This thorough evaluation helps to strengthen the quality and credibility of research. By publishing our studies, we can now share our findings with the global scientific community and policymakers and healthcare professionals often rely on peer-reviewed literature to make decisions.
It has been a long journey to get here! Work on the first paper began back in 2019! Still, I am delighted that we now have the chance to push for real change in our understanding of male suicide risk and recovery and for funding for the research priorities that matter most.
Thank you to everyone at Jonathan’s Voice – you have all played a significant part in this journey by helping to provide the funding to make it happen. This achievement is for all of us. Thank you.
Despite the consistently high suicide rates in men, there has been very little research to understand why. Consequently, there is lots we do not know and many important things to explore. We wanted to work with experts to develop an agenda of which work, going forward, should be prioritised. To do this, we reviewed the current literature on male suicide, including academic studies, policy papers and charity findings. From this, we developed 135 questions.
We then worked with 242 people with lived experience, representing 34 countries, and 12 global experts in male suicide to prioritise these questions.
Together we have developed a 22-point research agenda of male suicide priorities. These include questions exploring men’s relationships with others, their thoughts and feelings about themselves, early life experiences, cultural pressures, work/financial challenges, and recovery interventions.
The three highest-voted questions related to loneliness and isolation (98%), feelings of failure (97%), and sources of stress and emotional pain (96%). The study will shortly be sent out to journals for peer review and, hopefully, publication. We will then work to share the findings with research teams worldwide, charities, policymakers and funders. We believe this work can be significant in helping global colleagues strategically target resources.
As ever we are indebted to Jonathan’s Voice supporters. This is a collective effort, and your support, on this vital issue, really does make a difference.
Thank you.
If you would like to read a shorter version of Susie’s update, please go to our July 2022 Newsletter. https://jonathansvoice.org.uk/newsletters
“The last few months I have been working on revisions for an important journal who are interested in publishing our Systematic Review. Our Review analyses 20 years worth of qualitative studies (interviews and focus groups) with men that have attempted suicide and people bereaved by male suicide.
We looked at 78 papers in total and aimed to bring this evidence base together to distil the core findings to help researchers around the world consolidate our knowledge of male risk and recovery factors. In 96% of papers we found evidence of norms of masculinity associated with potential suicide risk for men.
These norms fell into three broad clusters –
These norms all interact. For example if a man feels like a failure – that he is not succeeding – norms to suppress emotions means he might not disclose this distress to others therefore creating potential distance in his relationship with others.
We suggest that these norms all interact to both
This is an important interaction. Often suicide is not just about a man’s exposure to pain in life – this is part of the human experience for most of us – but critically about the tools they have to regulate that pain. Our relationship with our emotions for example are an important way in which we identify, manage, communicate and regulate our pain. If many men are socialised to deny their emotional reality they are potentially cut off from a critical tool to regulate the pain in life that we are all exposed to.
Suicide is very complex and so our findings do not provide a complete explanation for why suicide happens – no findings could – but I hope they can make an important contribution to advancing some of our understanding.
Our revised manuscript is now with the editor for review. If accepted this would be a very significant achievement for our work as the journal is a very important one and rarely publishes qualitative work so we would be able to give our findings a very big international platform. So, fingers crossed!
As always I am absolutely indebted to the support of everyone connected to Jonathan’s Voice. Your support enables me to carry out this work and I feel really hopeful that even though there is much that needs to change, our work is helping us move closer to creating a clearer roadmap for how to deliver those changes. The more I do this work the more moved and passionate I feel about the many ways in which the male experience is not properly understood or recognised and how important it is that organisations like Jonathan’s Voice exist to help shine a spotlight on this. Thank you for helping me do this work. “
I have now launched the final part of my PhD study. Working with people bereaved by male suicide and men who are suicidal, we are co-designing a research agenda for investigating male suicide.
Based on findings from the existing evidence base, many research questions need to be investigated to further our understanding of male suicide risk and recovery. However, the research world has limited resources to tackle these questions.
By asking people with lived experience which questions they consider most important, we aim to develop an agenda of priorities to focus the work of academics, charities and researchers. The research questions in our study are based on existing evidence of some of the challenges men who are suicidal face.
Nine leading global academic experts in male suicide are supporting the study and have reviewed the research questions and contributed their feedback. We have recruited 400 people worldwide to participate in the lived experience panels from diverse locations such as Australia, India, Syria, and of course, the UK. We hope to capture a rich and diverse picture of the key priorities to help guide our future research work I look forward to sharing the findings with you.
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