Methodological Issues in Community Surveys of Suicide Ideators and Attempters

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on community studies of suicidal ideation & behaviour in order to highlight the underlying reasons for the differences in findings. The focus is on drawing attention to the range of methodologies & definitions used in various community surveys as opposed to looking at each community survey in detail. This paper also discusses some strategies that can be used to standardize research methods so as the enhance the comparability of these studies. (49 refs.)