Social isolation is among the most common risk factors identified by Australian men who attempt suicide, a new study has found.

Men accounted for 74.7% of the 2,520 suicides in Australia in 2013, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows, but research is lacking on what drives them to take their lives in such high numbers. The Black Dog Institute interviewed 35 men who had survived a suicide attempt, and 47 family or friends of men who had survived a suicide attempt.

Almost all the men had experienced at least one of four factors in the lead-up to their attempt, the study found. These included a period of depressed or disrupted mood; unhelpful perceptions of masculinity consisting of stoic beliefs and values that prevented them from seeking help; social isolation; at least one personal stressor, such as unemployment or relationship breakdown.

“These elements tended to interact with each other and worsen over time, leading to greater suicide risk, whilst also creating barriers that interfered with attempts to treat depression or interrupt suicidality,” the report, published in the journal PLOS One, found.

“Many men stated that their attempts to manage problems, to avoid revealing weakness or stigmatising labels, led them to isolate themselves and instead rely on coping strategies that required less immediate effort and provided short-term alleviation of problems, for example, drug or alcohol use, gambling, and working excessively.”

The lead author of the study, Associate Professor Judy Proudfoot, said the findings would help researchers tailor intervention and treatment programs more appropriately.

“We urgently need more tailored mental health programs for men in different situations, and Black Dog researchers are currently using these results to develop an online tool that can be personally tailored to provide evidence-based psychological treatment for users,” she said.

The executive director of the brain and mind research institute at the University of Sydney, Professor Ian Hickie, said social isolation was perhaps the most important factor contributing to male suicide attempts.

There was a “wealth of evidence” that men had more restricted social networks than women, and that these networks were heavily work-based, he said.

“So for a man a loss of a job also means the loss of a whole set of social connections as well,” said Hickie, who is also a national mental health commissioner.

“It’s the same if their relationship with their partner breaks up – it can mean the loss of a network of friends and family as well.”

It meant when trouble hit, men could become very isolated very quickly, he said.

“So the issue is, how do we respond within family groups and workplaces, and use new technologies and the internet, to make sure this isolation does not occur?”

The study was funded by beyondblue. Its head of policy, research and evaluation, Stephen Carbone, said research suggested men needed to be targeted differently when preventing and treating their depression.

“Men and women do have a different language in the way they understand mental health and mental health conditions, so we need to help men to better understand the signs and systems, which women seem to have better knowledge of,” Carbone said.

“It’s also about challenging some barriers men experience, as some feel like admitting depression is soft or unmanly. We must challenge that, on top of the general stigma that can exist with mental health conditions.”

• The crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. More information is available at the ManTherapy website.