RESEARCH AIMS AND PARADIGMATIC BASIS
The current study aimed to explore the experiences and needs that mental health-care consumers had of suicidal crisis, the degree to which those needs were met, the role that mental health nurse engagement played in that context, and the key factors suggested to impact on the quality of care.
The research was underpinned by the qualitative research paradigm, which has a particular synchronicity with mental health nursing (Cutcliffe 2000), and is essential in the study of human experiences (Habermas 1987), particularly suicide (Cutcliffe & Stevenson 2007; Hjelmeland & Knizek 2010; Webb 2005). The interpretive paradigm supported a multimethod design (Denzin & Lincoln 2005), generating both survey and interview data. The interview data were seen as particularly valuable,
as they provided first-person narrative accounts, which are recognized as crucial to understanding suicidal
behaviour (Cutcliffe et al. 2006; Shneidman 2001).
First-person accounts counter the ‘paradox of exclusion’, which can reinforce inadequate evidence by excluding from research the very people who hold some of the most pertinent knowledge (Lakeman & FitzGerald 2007). In doing so, they provide muchneeded intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual knowledge of suicidality (Hjelmeland & Knizek 2010; Lester 2010; Rogers & Apel 2010). Integrating nurse and consumer accounts in a single study enabled data to be converged and contrasted to generate a fuller understanding. A critical approach was embraced as essential towards exposing and challenging the mediating factors at play (Kincheloe & McLaren 2005), thereby enhancing the potential to provide recommendations for practice development.