Exploring health seeking behavior among men who have attempted suicide - a qualitative study from Germany

BACKGROUND: Men are at a significantly higher risk of dying by suicide than women. At the same time, they are less likely to seek help compared to women, alongside other risk factors. The aim of this qualitative study is to examine the facilitating and inhibiting aspects that affect help-seeking in men who have attempted suicide in order to inform gender-specific suicide prevention. METHODS: Fourteen qualitative, problem-centered interviews were conducted with men who have had at least one suicide attempt in their life. Facilitating and inhibiting aspects for help-seeking were analyzed using structuring qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: Facilitating aspects for seeking help include access to professional support, social resources, favorable psychological resources, positive experiences with the support system, and symptom burden. Inhibiting aspects include perceived inaccessibility of professional support, psychological aspects that hinder help-seeking, negative experiences with the support system, stigma/guilt and shame, and hegemonic masculinity norms. CONCLUSIONS: The findings regarding inhibiting and facilitating aspects offer various avenues to improve men’s access to psychiatric and psychosocial support systems, as well as to advance gender-specific suicide prevention at the intra-individual level (e.g., strengthening favorable psychological resources), the interpersonal level (e.g., training gatekeepers for men with few social resources), and the societal level (e.g., availability of psychosocial support).