Suicide attempts and stressful life events among homeless people in Madrid (Spain)

Abstract

The article describes a study carried out with a representative sample of homeless people in Madrid (Spain; N = 188). This study aims to corroborate the relationship identified in the literature between stressful life events and suicidal behaviour in a group in a situation of social exclusion, to assess the differences in the number and characteristics of stressful life events experienced by homeless people who are attempters and non‐attempters, and to identify which combination of stressful life events enables discrimination for suicide attempts among homeless people. The results show that 30% of homeless people in Madrid had attempted suicide, and 57.9% of them had done so for the first time when they were homeless. The interviewees are shown to have experienced a large amount of stressful life events, with substantially more stressors experienced by the homeless people who tried to commit suicide, during both their childhood and adolescence and throughout their life. Finally, we found that the combination of 7 stressful life events provided the best possible discrimination between homeless attempters and non‐attempters.

The Role and Comparison of Stressful Life Events in Suicide and Suicide Attempt: A Descriptive-Analytical Study

“…Some other relevant studies have been conducted worldwide, including a study in China (18,19), a population-based study in Denmark (12), and a study in the USA (11). Also, most of the studies in western countries have examined SLEs in SAs (3,12,20), whereas the current study explored both suicide and SAs. The same results were found in the present study and Paul and Wang studies in the USA (18,21), as well as in a meta-analysis study (22).…”

Differences in stressful life events between men and women experiencing homelessness

“…For instance, there are more cases of physical and sexual abuse among people experiencing homelessness than in the domiciled population (Wenzel et al, 2000). Moreover, among this population, SLEs are associated with the presence of a wide range of physical and mental health problems (Hatch & Dohrenwend, 2007), a reduction in the quality of life (Krug, 2004), suicide attempts (Panadero et al, 2018), and high rates of substance abuse (Tyler & Melander, 2015).…”

“…Several studies have found a high prevalence of childhood SLEs in people experiencing homelessness (Edalati et al, 2016;Stein et al, 2002). Studies conducted on both European and US-based samples have shown that these individuals often present indicators of dysfunctional home backgrounds, with a history of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood, parental substance abuse or mental illness, running away from home, and institutionalization (Padgett et al, 2012;Panadero et al, 2018;Wong & Piliavin, 2001). In addition, it has been found that exposure to adversity during childhood and adolescence is the main trigger for leaving home and early homelessness (Mar et al, 2014).…”

Mothers living homeless in Madrid (Spain): Characteristics, vulnerabilities and relationships with their children

“…A particularly striking figure is that more than half of those interviewed who had been mothers said they had attempted suicide. This is a much higher percentage than the figure for people living homeless in Madrid (Panadero et al, 2018) and for women living homeless (Vázquez & Panadero, 2019). Most of the suicide attempts had occurred prior to the person concerned becoming homeless.…”

“…Women living homeless have to cope with multiple intersecting vulnerabilities (e.g. extreme poverty, lack of social networks, physical and mental health problems, experiencing multiple and serious stressful life events at an early age, consumption of psychoactive substances and difficulties in accessing the labour market), some of which are specific to their status as a woman, for example, sexual assaults, sexual exploitation, gender‐based violence, unwanted pregnancies and abortions (Belcher, Greene, McAlpine, & Ball, 2001; Guillén et al, 2020; Hatch & Dohrenwend, 2007; Herman, Susser, Struening, & Link, 1997; Panadero, Martín, & Vázquez, 2018; Vázquez et al, 2017b; Vázquez, Panadero, & Pascual, 2019; Vázquez & Panadero, in press). Unfortunately, the way in which a person experiences a disadvantage is inevitably determined by the other disadvantages they suffer from.…”