Cluster suicide in rural western Canada.

This paper focuses on a series of adolescent suicides which occurred in a small rural community in Western Canada between December 1989 and June 1990. Risk factors for adolescent suicide and recent epidemiological data on cluster suicide are reviewed and discussed. The circumstances of the five adolescent suicides are then discussed, and the question of whether or not this was a cluster suicide is considered. This article supports the view that suicide is an abnormal response to stress or loss and emphasizes the role of genetic psychophysiological predisposition.