Qualitvativedocs

Leh Theng WONG (13KDO)

3. Using material from Item C and elsewhere, assess the strengths and limitations of using qualitative documents as a means of investigating suicide.

According to Item C, suicide is a difficult topic to study because those who commit suicide are not available tor research as they are already dead. However, they might leave behind certain qualitative documents such as suicide notes, diaries, blogs etc. This allows the coroner to investigate and interpret the messages and also compare them to previous suicide cases. However, there are often problems of access to qualitative documents. Such as, diaries are mostly kept personal or otherwise removed by family members. Also, not every person who committed suicide writes suicide notes, this leaves the coroner clueless to classify the death as a suicide. Besides, it is often difficult to find those who have attempted suicide in order to conduct comparisons and further investigation.

In terms of methodological perspectives, interpretivist would definitely favour the use of qualitative documents such as personal diaries because they contribute validity and authenticity to the relevant investigation. They are able to produce rich and deep insights about an individual through the notes written. This is difficult to achieve by using official statistics and other quantitative resources. However, they often lack confidentiality since informed consent is not gained from the dead person. Also, like what Item C has suggested, the resulting media interest can be very stressful for bereaved relatives and friends, particularly where a death is reported in an insensitive or inaccurate manner. We also could not ensure that the coroner is able to gain access to all documents since some of them are deliberately kept unrevealed. Hence, while qualitative documents provide credits and a good starting point for investigations, they however can raise certain ethical issues, which will cause detrimental effects to different parties.

Item C suggested that according to Samaritans, the majority of people who take their own lives have mental health problems, sometimes being diagnosed before the person’s death and sometimes not. This clearly shows that some qualitative documents produced are not as accurate since they might be influenced by emotional difficulties such as lack of consciousness. They also lack of hypothesis testing and difficult to generalize since every individual has their own distinctive reasons to commit suicide. However, sometimes, they are the only resource that could be used to investigate death, especially when the person’s physical injuries are not significant enough. Hence, we could say that there are various strengths and limitations of using qualitative documents as a means of investigating suicide. They should not be ignored but on the other side, they should be carefully assessed and interpreted before any conclusion is made.