Resilience, Cultural Beliefs, and Practices That Mitigate Suicide Risk Among African American Women Veterans

Brooke A. Dorsey Holliman, Lindsey L. Monteith, Elizabeth G. Spitzer and Lisa A. Brenner

SAGE Open, 2018, vol. 8, issue 1, 2158244017753506

Abstract: To our knowledge, no studies have examined protective factors for suicide among African American women Veterans. We conducted a qualitative study to identify and describe cultural beliefs and practices that mitigate suicide risk among African American women Veterans. Our sample included 16 African American women Veterans ( M age = 53.3) eligible to receive Veterans Health Administration care. The following three themes emerged as being protective against suicide: (a) resilience, (b) social support, and (c) religion. Women described developing resilience from exposure to adversity. Social support primarily entailed informal assistance from family and friends. Finally, religion comprised three subthemes: faith in God, personal practices, and religious beliefs. Results underscore the importance of specific cultural beliefs and practices as being protective against suicide among African American women Veterans.

Keywords: women Veterans; African American; suicide; culture; resilience; qualitative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244017753506 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:8:y:2018:i:1:p:2158244017753506

DOI: 10.1177/2158244017753506

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().