Loewenthal, K M and Kamal, Z (2002) Suicide beliefs and behaviour among young Muslims and Hindus in the UK. Mental health, religion and culture, 5 (2).
Full text access: Open
It has been suggested that Hindu tradition is relatively tolerant of suicide, while Islamic tradition has consistently regarded suicide as a very grave sin. This study sought to examine the possible impact of religious-cultural tradition by examining suicide-related beliefs and reported behaviour in non-clinical samples of young Hindus (n=40) and Muslims (n=60) living in the UK. Participants completed a short demographic questionnaire, the Reasons for Living Inventory, and the measures of suicide thoughts, plans and behaviour. The Hindus endorsed moral, total and (marginally) survival-and-coping reasons for living less strongly than did the Muslims. Women endorsed family-related, fear of suicide and (marginally) total reasons for living less strongly than did men. There were no noteworthy between-group differences with respect to suicide thoughts, plans or behaviour. Causal inferences are not possible, but the results are consistent with the suggestions that scriptural differences between Hinduism and Islam in attitudes to suicide may be responsible for some of the differences detected in this study.
This is a Published version This version's date is: 01/07/2002 This item is not peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/8f0def71-8625-dffa-6164-020f85f5df5a/1/
Deposited by () on 23-Dec-2009 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 23-Dec-2009
DURKHEIM, E. (1952, first published 1897) Suicide. London: Routledge. FIRTH, S. (1997) Dying, Death and Bereavement in a British Hindu Community. Leuven: Peeters. HASSAN, R. (1983) A Way of Dying: Suicide in Singapore. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. JAHANGIR, F., REHMAN, H. & JAN, T. (1998) Degree of religiosity and vulnerability to suicide attempts/plans in depressive patients among Afghan refugees. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 8, 265-269. KHAN, H. (in preparation) Life-events and depression in Asian Muslim women in Britain. PhD: London University. KHAN, M.M., ISLAM, S. & KUNDI, A.K. (1996) Parasuicide in Pakistan: Experience at a university hospital. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 93, 264-267. INEICHEN, B. (1998) The influence of religion on the suicide rate: Islam and Hinduism compared. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 1, 31-36. LADHA, K.S., BHAT, S.M. & DâSOUZA, P. (1996) Suicide attempts in a general hospital in India: Their socio-demographic and clinical profile: Emphasis on cross-cultural aspects. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 94, 26-30. LESTER, D. (1997) Suicide in an international perspective. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behaviour, 27, 104-111. LINEHAN, M.M., GOODSTEIN, J.L., NIELSEN, S.L. & CHILES, J.A. (1983) Reasons for staying alive when you are thinking of killing yourself: The Reasons for Living Inventory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 51, 276-286. LOEWENTHAL, K.M., MACLEOD, A.K. & CINNIRELLA, M. (2002) Are women more religious than men? Gender differences in religious activity among different religious groups in the UK. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 133-139. QURESHI, A. (In preparation) Depression, anxiety and somatisation in Pakistani women immigrants to the UK. PhD: London University. ROBERTS, R.E., CHEN, Y.R. & ROBERTS, C.R. (1997) Ethnocultural differences in prevalence of adolescent suicidal behaviours. Suicide and Life-threatening Behaviour, 27, 208-217. SONI RALEIGH, V., BULUSU, L. & BALARAJAN, R. (1990) Suicides among immigrants from the Indian Subcontinent. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 46-50. STACK, S. (1992) Religiosity, depression and suicide. In J. Schumaker (ed) Religion and Mental Health. Oxford: Oxford University Press. STOPES-ROE, M. & COCHRANE, R. (1990) The child-rearing values of Asian and British parents and young people: An inter-ethinic and inter-generational comparison in the evaluation of Kohnâs 13 qualities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 149-160.