The states of the Mountain West region of the United States consistently have the highest rates of suicide in the country, a pattern particularly pronounced in older White men. Although multiple constructs have been proposed to explain this long-standing pattern, including social isolation, cultural values, and psychopathology, relatively little research has been conducted to directly examine the predictive role of these risk factors and how they interact. We review the extant research for these constructs to establish (a) whether the risk factor occurs at a higher rate or is otherwise more influential in this region compared to the rest of the country and (b) whether the risk factor may account for specific effects in older White men in order to determine whether the evidence supports the role of each risk factor in understanding the high rates of suicide among older White men in this region. Using the results of this review, we then present a possible cultural script for suicide based on cultural scripts of gender and suicide theory (Canetto, 1997, 2017, 2021) that describes who dies by suicide, the methods they use, their emotions and motives, and the cultural understanding of the causes and acceptability of their suicidal behaviors within the Mountain West. This cultural script can serve as a guide for researchers investigating the complex mechanisms that account for elevated rates of suicide in this region. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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美国西部山区白人自杀的文化脚本。


美国西部山区各州的自杀率一直是全国最高的，这种模式在老年白人中尤其明显。尽管人们提出了多种解释来解释这种长期存在的模式，包括社会孤立、文化价值观和精神病理学，但直接检验这些风险因素的预测作用及其相互作用的研究相对较少。我们回顾了这些结构的现有研究，以确定（a）与该国其他地区相比，该地区的风险因素是否以更高的频率发生或在其他方面更具影响力，以及（b）风险因素是否可以解释特定影响以确定证据是否支持每个风险因素在了解该地区老年白人的高自杀率方面的作用。然后，利用本综述的结果，我们基于性别和自杀理论的文化脚本（Canetto，1997、2017、2021）提出了一种可能的自杀文化脚本，该脚本描述了谁死于自杀、他们使用的方法、他们的情绪和动机，以及对西部山区自杀行为原因的文化理解和可接受性。这种文化脚本可以作为研究人员调查导致该地区自杀率升高的复杂机制的指南。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。