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Acceptance of suicide in Moscow

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Abstract

Purpose

Attitudes concerning the acceptability of suicide have been emphasized as being important for understanding why levels of suicide mortality vary in different societies across the world. While Russian suicide mortality levels are among the highest in the world, not much is known about attitudes to suicide in Russia. This study aims to obtain a greater understanding about the levels and correlates of suicide acceptance in Russia.

Methods

Data from a survey of 1,190 Muscovites were analysed using logistic regression techniques. Suicide acceptance was examined among respondents in relation to social, economic and demographic factors as well as in relation to attitudes towards other moral questions.

Results

The majority of interviewees (80%) expressed condemnatory attitudes towards suicide, although men were slightly less condemning. The young, the higher educated, and the non-religious were more accepting of suicide (OR > 2). However, the two first-mentioned effects disappeared when controlling for tolerance, while a positive effect of lower education on suicide acceptance appeared. When controlling for other independent variables, no significant effects were found on suicide attitudes by gender, one’s current family situation, or by health-related or economic problems.

Conclusions

The most important determinants of the respondents’ attitudes towards suicide were their tolerance regarding other moral questions and their religiosity. More tolerant views, in general, also seemed to explain the more accepting views towards suicide among the young and the higher educated. Differences in suicide attitudes between the sexes seemed to be dependent on differences in other factors rather than on gender per se. Suicide attitudes also seemed to be more affected by one’s earlier experiences in terms of upbringing and socialization than by events and processes later in life.

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Notes

  1. The construction and naming of the factors is further considered in “Discussion”.

  2. To be exact, the difference obviously more or less consciously perceived by the respondents.

  3. In addition, the involvement of a homosexual partner or a prostitute’s customer is likely to be voluntary, which is not necessarily the case in the interactions belonging to the other factor.

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Acknowledgments

The Swedish Foundation for Baltic and Eastern European Studies and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences have both contributed financially to this research. Natalia Rimashevskaya and Ludmila Migranova at ISESP helped to set up the study. Thanks also to the 30 interviewers and to all the respondents who gave of their time to answer our many questions. A special thanks to Dr Andrew Stickley for his comments on this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Baltic and East European Graduate School (BEEGS), Södertörn University, 141 89, Huddinge, Sweden

    Tanya Jukkala

  2. Stockholm Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (SCOHOST), Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden

    Ilkka Henrik Mäkinen

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  1. Tanya Jukkala
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Correspondence to Tanya Jukkala.

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Jukkala, T., Mäkinen, I.H. Acceptance of suicide in Moscow. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 46, 753–765 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-010-0244-9

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