Qualitative Research in Suicidology: Thoughts on Hjelmeland and Knizek’s “Why we Need Qualitative Research in Suicidology”

A recent article by Hjelemand and Knizek presented the case for qualitative research in suicidology.The present essay identifies and illustrates six dimensions in their discussion: explaining versus understanding,qualitative versus quantitative studies, case studies versus large samples, descriptive versus inferential statistics,idiographic versus nomothetic approaches and phenomenological versus interpretative approaches.