The Information Seeking Behaviors and Needs of Suicide Survivors During Bereavement
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Margaret Sullivan Zimmerman
Abstract
The suicide of one person impacts 60 people, known as suicide survivors. These survivors are at an increased risk for negative mental health outcomes including PTSD, suicidal ideation, and suicide contagion. Despite these consequences, there have not been any information science studies that have explored the information behaviors of people who have recently survived the suicide of a loved one. This article takes a unique approach in combining autoethnography with traditional survey research. One hundred and ninteen participants sourced from a private Facebook suicide bereavement group responded to a survey asking them about their information-seeking after a loved one committed suicide. The qualitative data were fragmented and grouped into like-responses and thematic codes that gave explanation to the research questions. These results are coupled with the author’s ethnographic recounting of a similar experience. Brenda Dervin’s sense-making is employed as the methodological lens through which the study is conducted. It is found that suicide survivors are highly unlikely to have their informational needs met. In the immediate aftermath of their loss, they are most likely to look for information related to the suffering of the deceased. As time passes, they begin to look for information about coping with their loss and preventing suicide of other people; either those close to them or in a larger community scale. Being a survivor motivated many participants to advocacy work. Finally, the author argues that the findings of this article should compel further research and the creation of information policy to aid survivors and prevent suicide contagion.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Laura Barrett for her assistance in editing the survey and assistance with data cleaning and drafting the introduction.
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Research funding: This work was supported by Florida State University’s School of Information.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Alethic Rights and Alethic Pluralism in Libraries
- Digital Archiving Policies of Central European Journals Registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals
- The Information Seeking Behaviors and Needs of Suicide Survivors During Bereavement
- Comparisons of the Economist Topics on Three Countries from 1991 Through 2016
- A Comparative Study of Information Literacy Study Trends Between Korea and Other Countries Using Keyword Networks
- “We Collect TONS of Data … We Report What We Think Our Community Cares the Most About … We Learn so Much from It:” School Librarians’ Evidence Collection and Sharing Practices
- Sex in the Stacks: Examining the Treatment of Explicit Materials in American Libraries
- A Study of Academic Library through the Prism of Knowledge Use and Problem Solving Networks
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Alethic Rights and Alethic Pluralism in Libraries
- Digital Archiving Policies of Central European Journals Registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals
- The Information Seeking Behaviors and Needs of Suicide Survivors During Bereavement
- Comparisons of the Economist Topics on Three Countries from 1991 Through 2016
- A Comparative Study of Information Literacy Study Trends Between Korea and Other Countries Using Keyword Networks
- “We Collect TONS of Data … We Report What We Think Our Community Cares the Most About … We Learn so Much from It:” School Librarians’ Evidence Collection and Sharing Practices
- Sex in the Stacks: Examining the Treatment of Explicit Materials in American Libraries
- A Study of Academic Library through the Prism of Knowledge Use and Problem Solving Networks
