Abstract
This study aims to discuss about the circumstances that involved the suicide of elderly people that occurred in Teresina city, PI. It is a qualitative, descriptive, exploratory study made through psychosocial autopsies of five suicidal cases of elderly people. Thereunto, it was investigated retrospectively the life of these subjects, by interviews with relatives who lived nearby the victims. The method used has grouped three types of instruments: personal and social identification form of the elder, genogram and semi structured interview. The stories were analyzed qualitatively, reconstructed taking as a guide the principles of hermeneutical-dialectic. It has been observed that the outstanding presence of some risk circumstances associated to the investigated suicides, which there were fragile affective relationships, meaningless life, depression, abuse of alcohol, aggressive impulsive personality traits and occurrence of previous suicide attempts.
Keywords:
old age; psychosocial autopsies; suicide