[2][3][5][10] Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or academic difficulties), relationship problems (such as breakups or divorces), or harassment and bullying.

[31] Suicide is often seen as a major catastrophe, causing significant grief to the deceased's relatives, friends and community members, and it is viewed negatively almost everywhere around the world.

[55] Epigenetics, the study of changes in genetic expression in response to environmental factors which do not alter the underlying DNA, is also believed to play a role in determining suicide risk.

[57] Factors that affect the risk of suicide include mental disorders, drug misuse, psychological states, cultural, family and social situations, genetics, experiences of trauma or loss, and nihilism.

[129][92] A number of psychological factors increase the risk of suicide including: hopelessness, loss of pleasure in life, depression, anxiousness, agitation, rigid thinking, rumination, thought suppression, and poor coping skills.

[177][78] School-based programs that increase mental health literacy and train staff have shown mixed results on suicide rates.

[184] Risk of depression may be reduced with a healthy diet "high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes; moderate amounts of poultry, eggs, and dairy products; and only occasional red meat".

[185] IS PATH WARM [...] is an acronym [...] to assess [...] a potentially suicidal individual, (i.e., ideation, substance abuse, purposelessness, anger, feeling trapped, hopelessness, withdrawal, anxiety, recklessness, and mood).

[190] As there is a high rate of people who test positive via these tools that are not at risk of suicide, there are concerns that screening may significantly increase mental health care resource utilization.

[92] Short-term hospitalization has not been found to be more effective than community care for improving outcomes in those with borderline personality disorder who are chronically suicidal.

[192][193] There is tentative evidence that psychotherapy, specifically dialectical behaviour therapy, reduces suicidality in adolescents[194] as well as in those with borderline personality disorder.

[2] The countries with the greatest absolute numbers of suicides are China and India, partly due to their large population size, accounting for over half the total.

[228][231][232] However, separating intentional suicide attempts from non-suicidal self-harm is not currently done in places like the United States when gathering statistics at the national level.

[248] In Rome, some reasons for suicide included volunteering death in a gladiator combat, guilt over murdering someone, to save the life of another, as a result of mourning, from shame from being raped, and as an escape from intolerable situations like physical suffering, military defeat, or criminal pursuit.

A criminal ordinance issued by Louis XIV of France in 1670 was extremely severe, even for the times: the dead person's body was drawn through the streets, face down, and then hung or thrown on a garbage heap.

In his 1777 Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul he rhetorically asked, "Why should I prolong a miserable existence, because of some frivolous advantage which the public may perhaps receive from me?

[252] A shift in public opinion at large can also be discerned; The Times in 1786 initiated a spirited debate on the motion "Is suicide an act of courage?".

[254] The Netherlands was the first country to legalize both physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, which took effect in 2002, although only doctors are allowed to assist in either of them, and have to follow a protocol prescribed by Dutch law.

The high court in Lausanne, Switzerland, in a 2006 ruling, granted an anonymous individual with longstanding psychiatric difficulties the right to end his own life.

U.S. laws allow border guards to deny access to people who have a mental illness, including those with previous suicide attempts.

[267] However, it is a crime to counsel, incite, or aid and abet another in attempting to die by suicide, and the law explicitly allows any person to use "such force as may reasonably be necessary" to prevent another from taking their own life.

There are ongoing efforts to decriminalise attempted suicide, although rights groups and non-governmental organisations such as the local chapter of Befrienders say that progress has been slow.

[274] The first reading of a bill to repeal Section 309 of the Penal Code was tabled in Parliament in April 2023, bringing Malaysia one step closer towards decriminalising attempted suicide.

Despite this, under extreme circumstances when there has seemed no choice but to either be killed or forced to betray their religion, there are several accounts of Jews having died by suicide, either individually or in groups (see Holocaust, Masada, First French persecution of the Jews and York Castle for examples), and as a grim reminder there is even a prayer in the Jewish liturgy for "when the knife is at the throat", for those dying "to sanctify God's Name" (see Martyrdom).

[290] According to Norbert Richard Adami, this ethic exists due to the case that solidarity within the community is much more important to Ainu culture than it is to the Western world.

Supporters of this position maintain that no one should be forced to suffer against their will, particularly from conditions such as incurable disease, mental illness, and old age, with no possibility of improvement.

Notable supporters of this school of thought include Scottish empiricist David Hume,[291] who accepted suicide so long as it did not harm or violate a duty to God, other people, or the self,[252] and American bioethicist Jacob Appel.

[307] Many locations where suicide is common have constructed barriers to prevent it;[308] this includes the Luminous Veil in Toronto,[306] the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne, and Empire State Building in New York City.

[314] During World War II, Erwin Rommel was found to have foreknowledge of the 20 July plot on Hitler's life; he was threatened with public trial, execution, and reprisals on his family unless he killed himself.

Some of the reasons animals are thought to unintentionally kill themselves include: psychological stress, infection by certain parasites or fungi, or disruption of a long-held social tie, such as the ending of a long association with an owner and thus not accepting food from another individual.