Older adults make sense of their suicidal behavior: a Swedish interview study

Participants' age-related losses were in many cases exacerbated by negative interactions with health care providers, indicating that continued attention needs to be given to implicit ageism in medical professionals. The suicidal acts were described as impulsive, which was unexpected because a dominant belief is that older adult suicidal behavior is planned. One reason for the discrepancy may be that this study focused on nonfatal acts, and planned acts may be more likely to be fatal. Another reason could be shame due to suicide stigma. Alternatively, these acts were truly unplanned. The older adult suicide planning question should be addressed in larger studies across geographical and cultural settings. Future studies should also include questions about gender norms of suicidality and separately examine women's and men's data.