Social and familial risk factors in suicidal behavior.

The focus of this article is on the presence or absence of external and constraining social facts, as reflected in indicators like divorce rate, marital status, the number of close friends, loss of crucial significant others, or sometimes having no one who cares if the person lives or dies, feelings of shame or intolerable guilt, the belief of sacrificing one's life for a higher cause or another person, and military suicide. This article reviews the history of the sociology of suicide, social isolation, contagion, imitation, suicide clusters, stress, and negative life events.