The first comprehensive study of the emotional content of suicide notes in the Republic has found that they contain a high level of positive emotions.
Dr Justin Brophy, chairman of the Irish Psychiatric Association and consultant psychiatrist at Newcastle Hospital, Co Wicklow, will tell the National Conference of Psychiatrists today that love is the primary emotion expressed by those who have subsequently taken their own lives.
While very few notes contained an explanation for the suicide, there is not as much despair evident as one might have anticipated, Dr Brophy said last night.
The study, which will be presented today at the conference in Dublin, examined 772 Garda suicide files from January 2000 to January 2001 for the presence of suicide notes. A total of 145 notes were subsequently examined and scored for emotional content.
The research shows that positive emotions of love, gratitude and forgiveness were expressed in 62 per cent of the suicide notes. Expressed anger was found in only 6.3 per cent of those analysed. Younger suicides were significantly more likely than older suicides to include emotion in their notes.
The authors - Dr Anne Marie Feeley, of the Vergemount Clinic, Clonskeagh, Dr R. Gafoo, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, Dr John Connolly, of St Mary's Hospital, Castlebar, and Dr Brophy - found that expressions of hostility were implicit in about half of the notes analysed.
"However, the expression of positive emotion in a majority of notes is noteworthy and suggests a possible starting point for instilling hope and increasing positive motivation in acutely suicidal individuals," the authors say.
Suicide rates have risen sharply in the Republic in recent years; suicides among 15/34-year-olds have risen twelvefold in the period from 1960 to 2000. For those aged 35 and over, suicides doubled during the same period.
"Identifying and understanding the emotional factors linked with suicide may help in the acute treatment of suicidal patients," Dr Brophy will tell today's conference.