9.3. Feelings of guilt and inadequacy
The participants indicated that they felt inadequate as they
could not recognise altered behaviour that could lead to suicide.
The participants' descriptions of suicidal patients indicated
that the patients' behaviours were very unpredictable
and self-destructive, and therefore the patients withheld their
suicidal intentions from the nurses.
‘Patients who successfully commit suicide appear normal. They
never pre-empty what they will do, so no-one predicts’.
‘Feelings of guilt and inadequacy overwhelmed me, I started
asking myself what could I have done better should I have known
that the patient was going to brutally kill herself like that’.