Cicatrizes de um trauma: aspectos emocionais relacionados ao ato da tentativa de suicídio pelo uso do fogo

Abstract

This dissertation consists in two articles, a systematic review of the literature and an empirical. The conducted survey focused on research suicide attempts made from the use of fire. The study 1 carried out a systematic review of national and international literature on the topic of suicide attempts by self-inflicted burns in the period 2007-2012, the databases Academic Search Premier, MEDLINE / PubMed, Lilacs and Scielo. It was found 23 articles, most quantitative and which were published in various journals in the area of health and by different professionals. The results show that this event occurs more frequently in developing countries, where the rates for suicide present higher for males, and in cases of attempted suicide, the vast majority of subjects were female. The studies also found out that people who had attempted suicide by fire had low level of education achievement, were mostly young adults and had psychiatric history and/or substance abuse and difficulties on social and family relationships. In the study 2, the aim was to understand the meanings of the choice of fire as a device for the suicide attempt and identify the emotional aspects that permeate the lives of these individuals before the burn trauma. The study included eight women who had suffered self-inflicted burns for at least a year and a half and were under medical supervision for outpatient repair of burn scars at a hospital in Porto Alegre. All participants completed a semi structured interview that was investigating the life history of the participants, the time to fire themselves, experience the burn, their current life context, the feelings after the act, social reintegration and how the burn has affected in their daily lives and their mental and physical health. In addition, a questionnaire was administered to sociodemographic and clinical data. The age of them ranged between 24 and 55 years old, five of them reported being married/living together, two got divorced after the burn occurrence and one was widowed. Most participants set fire to themselves in an impulsive act, in which they had no knowledge about the scars left by burns and admitted having done so with the intention of calling a close relative’s attention. After the act, there were difficulties related to social reintegration, coping with the look of estrangement from the other and with their own, before a new image. It was concluded that it is extremely important to invest in prevention and information programs to avoid the occurrence of new cases of self-inflicted burns that cause devastating consequences in these people.