Suicide and medical practices: Assessing the way of life among Colombian coffee-growing rural men in mental health care

Lucy Nieto-Betancurt PhD in Health. Professor, Universidad Católica de Pereira; Risaralda, Colombia. image/svg+xml , Janet Mosquera-Becerra

PhD in Sociology. Professor, School of Public Health. Coordinator, Master in Public Health, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia.

 
 image/svg+xml , Andrés Fandiño-Losada PhD in Health Sciences. Associate Professor, School of Public Health. Researcher, Cisalva Institute, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia. image/svg+xml , Luis Alberto Suárez Guava PhD in Anthropology. Assistant Professor, Universidad de Caldas, Manizales, Colombia.

  image/svg+xml

Received: 14 September 2023, Accepted: 19 January 2024, Published: 29 February 2024 Open Access
https://doi.org/10.18294/sc.2024.4663 | PMID: 38427326
Abstract views
760
Metrics Loading ...

Abstract


The aim was to understand the way of life and self-care practices in mental health among adult male farmers living in a municipality in the Risaralda department, located in the coffee axis of Colombia, marked by a high incidence of suicides. An ethnographic study was conducted between March and December 2021, employing a combination of methods including interviews, participant observation, document review, and field diaries. Economic and social aspects undergoing transformations were identified, impacting gender roles, family dynamics, and caregiving possibilities for these men. By observing how men discuss their suffering and the resources available to address it, it can be concluded that mental health practices function more as self-care resources, while health services often provide symptom-based care, neglecting attentive listening. These findings are valuable for shaping services and life care strategies that align with the conditions of rural men in Colombia.

Keywords: Mental Health, Rural Health, Suicide, Qualitative Research, Masculinity, Colombia

Categories: Violences, Healthcare models, Work

Funding: Universidad del Valle | Proyecto CI-1916 , Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación | 752-2017

Full-text of the article is available for this language: Español.


References


1. Hagen BNM, Albright A, Sargeant J, Winder CB, Harper SL, O’Sullivan TL, et al. Research trends in farmers’ mental health: A scoping review of mental health outcomes and interventions among farming populations worldwide. PLoS One. 2019;14(12):e0225661.
Crossref | PubMed

2. Hagen BNM, Sawatzky A, Harper SL, O’Sullivan TL, Jones-Bitton A. “Farmers aren’t into the emotions and things, right?”: A qualitative exploration of motivations and barriers for mental health help-seeking among Canadian farmers. Journal of Agromedicine. 2022;27(2):113-123.
Crossref | PubMed

3. Nye C, Winter M, Lobley M. Farmers supporting farmers: Livestock auctions as spaces to reconstruct occupational community and counter mental health issues. Journal of Agromedicine. 2023;28(3):401-414.
Crossref | PubMed

4. Roy P, Tremblay G, Robertson S. Help-seeking among male farmers: Connecting masculinities and mental health: Help-seeking among male farmers. Sociologia Ruralis. 2014;54(4):460-476.
Crossref

5. Riethmuller ML, Dzidic PL, McEvoy PM, Newnham EA. Change, connection and community: A qualitative exploration of farmers’ mental health. Journal of Rural Studies. 2023;97:591-600.
Crossref

6. Jones-Bitton A, Best C, MacTavish J, Fleming S, Hoy S. Stress, anxiety, depression, and resilience in Canadian farmers. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 2020;55(2):229-236.
Crossref | PubMed

7. Sato M, Kato H, Noguchi M, Ono H, Kobayashi K. Gender differences in depressive symptoms and work environment factors among dairy farmers in Japan. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020;17(7):2569.
Crossref | PubMed

8. Bokinala VR. Investigation into the causes and potential mitigation of the high incidence of farmers suicide [Thesis PhD]. 2022 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/5n995d8y.

9. Bryant L, Garnham B. The fallen hero: masculinity, shame and farmer suicide in Australia. Gender, Place & Culture. 2015;22(1):67-82.
Crossref

10. Chaparro-Narváez P, Díaz-Jiménez D, Castañeda-Orjuela C. Tendencia de la mortalidad por suicidio en las áreas urbanas y rurales de Colombia, 1979-2014. Biomédica. 2019;39(2):339-353.
Crossref | PubMed

11. Barry R, Rehm J, de Oliveira C, Gozdyra P, Kurdyak P. Rurality and Risk of Suicide Attempts and Death by Suicide among People Living in Four English-speaking High-income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 2020;65(7):441-447.
Crossref | PubMed

12. Bjornestad A, Brown L, Weidauer L. The relationship between social support and depressive symptoms in Midwestern farmers. Journal of Rural Mental Health. 2019;43(4):109-117.
Crossref

13. Ramírez-Ferrero E. Troubled fields: men, emotions and the crisis in American farming. New York: Columbia University Press; 2005.
Crossref

14. Organización Mundial de la Salud. Prevención del suicidio: un imperativo global. Ginebra: Organización Mundial de la Salud; 2014.

15. Barak Y, Cheung G, Fortune S, Glue P. No country for older men: ageing male suicide in New Zealand. Australas Psychiatry. 2020;28(4):383-385.
Crossref | PubMed

16. Canetto S, Sakinofsky I. The gender paradox of suicide. Suicide & Life-threatening Behavior. 1998;28:1-23.
Crossref

17. Kaufman M. Género e identidad: Ensayos sobre lo femenino y lo masculino. En: Arango GL, León M, Viveros M, (comp.). Los hombres, el feminismo y las experiencias contradictorias del poder entre los hombres. Quito: TM editores; 1995.

18. Segato RL. Contra-pedagogías de la crueldad. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Prometeo Libros; 2018.

19. De Keijzer B. Hasta donde el Cuerpo Aguante: Género, Cuerpo y Salud Masculina. Perú: Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia; 2001. p:137-152.

20. Figueroa-Perea JG. El ser hombre desde el cuidado de sí: Algunas reflexiones. Revista latinoamericana de estudios de familia. 2015;(7):121-138.
Crossref

21. Herron RV, Ahmadu M, Allan JA, Waddell CM, Roger K. “Talk about it:” changing masculinities and mental health in rural places? Social, Science & Medicine. 2020;258:113099.
Crossref | PubMed

22. Pérez A. Muertes silenciadas: Problemática del suicidio en los campesinos de La Unión (Antioquia). Revista Facultad Nacional de Salud Pública. 2014;32(2):92-102.

23. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses. Forensis datos para la vida [Internet]. 2014 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/y9hz82yt.

24. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses. Comportamiento del suicidio: Colombia, 2015. Forensis datos para la vida [Internet]. 2015 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/5kn6t6sk.

25. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses. Comportamiento del suicidio: Colombia, 2016. Forensis, datos para la vida [Internet]. 2016 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/4ezv35mp.

26. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses. Comportamiento del suicidio: Colombia, 2017. Forensis, datos para la vida [Internet]. 2017 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/yrapn2yt.

27. Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal y Ciencias Forenses. Comportamiento del suicidio: Colombia, 2018. Forensis, datos para la vida [Internet]. 2018 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/6n4xh2at.

28. Cárdenas Romero J. Comportamiento del suicidio: Colombia, año 2019. Forensis, datos para la vida [Internet]. 2019 [citado 21 abr 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/bdemvbcv.

29. Mills C. Decolonizing Global Mental Health. En: Decolonizing Global Mental Health: The psychiatrization of the majority world. New York: Routledge; 2014.
Crossref

30. Rose N. Who needs global mental health. En: Our psychiatric future, the politics of mental health. Polity Press; 2019.

31. Sy A. Socio/Ethno-epidemiologies: proposals and possibilities from the Latin American production. Health Sociology Review. 2017;26(3):293-307.
Crossref

32. Almeida-Filho N. Modelos de determinação social das doenças crônicas não-transmissíveis. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva. 2004;9(4):865-884.
Crossref

33. Galende E. Psicofármacos y salud mental. La ilusión de no ser. ntercambios, papeles de psicoanàlisis / Intercanvis, papers de psicoanàlisi. 2008;(20):25-34.

34. Galende E. Editorial. Salud Mental y Comunidad. 2013;3(3):7-15.

35. Stolkiner A. Prácticas en salud mental. Revista de Investigación y educación en enfermería. 1988;6(1):31-61.
Crossref

36. Stolkiner A, Gómez AS. Conceptualizando la Salud Mental en las prácticas: consideraciones desde el pensamiento de la medicina social/salud colectiva latinoamericanas. Vertex- Revista Argentina de Psiquiatría. 2012;XXIII:57-67.

37. Schoenbach V, Rosamond W. Standardization of rates and ratios. En: Understanding the Fundamentals of epidemiology. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina School of Public Health; 1999. p. 129-153.

38. Piñeiro E, Diz C. El trabajo de campo como abandono: una reflexión sobre la metodología de la observación participante. Revista Colombiana De Antropología. 2018;54(1):59-88.
Crossref

39. Alonso LE. Sujeto y discurso: el lugar de la entrevista abierta en las prácticas de la sociología cualitativa. En: La mirada cualitativa en Sociología: una aproximación interpretativa. España: Editorial Fundamentos; 1998. p. 67-88.

40. Emerson RM, Fretz RI, Shaw LL. Writing ethnographic fieldnotes. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2011.
Crossref

41. Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad. Colombia adentro: relatos territoriales sobre el conflicto armado. En: Hay futuro si hay verdad [Internet]. 2022 [citado 10 may 2023]. Disponible en: http://tinyurl.com/29pwmcpm.

42. Acero C. Crisis cafetera, conflicto armado y cultivos ilícitos en el oriente caldense: el caso de Samaná. Revista de Antropología y Sociología: Virajes. 2016;18(1):47-85.
Crossref

43. Martínez LA, Ortiz D, Perdomo C, Restrepo C, Viloria M, Vásquez Á. Planes de desarrollo: derechos humanos y exclusión Risaralda 1997-2007. Editorial Nuevo Milenio; 2010.

44. Fadare O, Zanello G, Srinivasan C. Stressor or succour? Examining the association between conflict, livestock assets, and farmers’ mental health in Nigeria. Economics & Human Biology. 2023;49:101234.
Crossref | PubMed

45. Younker T, Radunovich HL. Farmer Mental Health Interventions: A Systematic Review. International journal of enviromental research and public health. 2021;19(1):244.
Crossref | PubMed

46. Arias L BE. Saberes locales campesinos sobre el alimento: aportes a la soberanía y la salud mental comunitaria. Revista de la Universidad Industrial de Santander Salud. 2016;48(2):232-239.
Crossref

47. Tobin TCS, Gutiérrez Á, Farmer HR, Erving CL, Hargrove TW. Intersectional Approaches to Minority Aging Research. Current Epidemiology Reports. 2023;10(1):33-43.
Crossref | PubMed

48. Idoyaga Molina A, Luxardo N. Experiencias de nervios entre mexicanos residentes en Estados Unidos. Scripta Ethnologica. 2004;XXVI:117-187.

49. Menéndez E. Epidemiología sociocultural: propuestas y posibilidades. Región y Sociedad. 2008;XX(2):5-46.

50. Kendler KS, Myers J, Prescott CA. Sex Differences in the Relationship Between Social Support and Risk for Major Depression: A Longitudinal Study of Opposite-Sex Twin Pairs. The American journal of psychiatry. 2005;162(2):250-256.
Crossref | PubMed



Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC