Dictionaries and encyclopedias of suicide

There are some studies that analyze definitions of the term “suicide” in academic works, as well as in generalist dictionaries and encyclopedias in several languages, but there still seems to be no investigation focused on specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias (SDEs) on this topic. Hence the general objective of this study was to describe the suicide SDEs available in the literature. To accomplish this purpose, a basic, quantitative, qualitative, descriptive, bibliographical and documental method was used. The 12 criteria proposed by John Humbley in 2018 for the analysis of SDEs were determined as the main theoretical foundation. From 2017 to 2022, through an integrative review in 6 languages and 4 databases, 8 SDEs were excluded. The 4 included ones were 2 dictionaries and 2 encyclopedias published between 2003 and 2016, 3 in English and 1 in Spanish. One of the most relevant findings was the fact that the SDEs examined try to address the various aspects of this object, instead of adopting a reductionist perspective. However, as only 4 books were analyzed, it was not possible to identify a clear pattern about all 12 criteria and all 4 sources. For example, it is not known which terms would be more feasible to include in a work of this nature nor the optimal way to predicate them. Even so, this paper is a relevant contribution to the studies on language and suicide, providing elements for the evolution of dictionaries and encyclopedias specialized on this binomial.