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Arizona
Suicide Prevention Alert Teams Up with Suicidology
Association To Offer Online Prevention Training
The American Association
of Suicidology will offer for the first time, through
our website, an on-line suicide prevention course
for health care professionals which can be taken for
continuing education credit. In addition, Arizona
Suicide Prevention Alert.com also has partnered with
this national organization to develop and offer a
training program for health care workers who deal
with American Indians, who carry a higher than average
suicide risk. The programs should be available in
the near future, according to Lanny Berman, AAS executive
director. For more information about AAS, go to www.suicidology.org.
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Studies Say Training Can
Prevent Suicides
The
National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (US DHHS, 2001:
p. 79) notes that a substantial proportion of suicides (45%:
Pirkis & Burgess, 1998) have had some contact with a mental
health professional in the last 12 months of their lives.
Citing limitations in this estimate, Luoma and Pearson (2002)
analyzed a number of studies and averaged overall rates
of contact with mental health services within 1 month before
suicide to be approximately 19%.
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A substantial number of
ultimate suicides have been found to be in treatment
at the time of their suicide.
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More profoundly, a substantial
number of ultimate suicides have been found to be in treatment
at the time of their suicide. Early estimates (c.f., Robins,
1981) suggested that more than 50% of suicides were in treatment
at the time of their death. Later studies (cf., Clark &
Fawcett, 1992), however, found more moderate rates in the
range of only 25-30%. An initial review of an as yet uncleaned
dataset from the National Violent Injury Surveillance System
(Kathy Barber, personal communication, August, 2003) supports
this estimate finding the percent of suicides in active
treatment at the time of their death to be 34%. A sample
of suicides from the United Kingdom (Appleby et al, 1999)
showed that approximately 10% (range: 7-12%) were inpatients
at the time of their deaths.
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...more
than 50% of suicides were in treatment at the time
of their death.
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Given that psychological autopsy
studies have well-documented that more than 90% of suicides
have a minimum of one retrospectively diagnosed mental disorder
at the time of their suicide, these findings reflect preventive
opportunities; i.e., at-risk patients both have need for
treatment and often are in treatment at the time of and
in the months prior to their suicide. Moreover, as a great
deal of suicide prevention strategies and plans are built
around best practices that emphasize the early detection
and treatment of suicidal behavior (e.g., gatekeeper training,
screening programs, public education, etc.), the success
of these efforts will mean that yet a greater proportion
of persons at-risk will reach offices of mental health professionals.
Thus, it is most essential to ensure that mental health
practitioners are adequately prepared to assess and treat
those at-risk persons who are referred.
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...it is most essential to ensure that mental health
practitioners are adequately prepared to assess and
treat those at-risk persons who are referred.
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However, the National Strategy
further quotes Robinsı (1981) finding that only 18% of decedents
reported suicidal ideation to a clinical professional before
their suicide. In addition, Appleby et al (1999) found that
24% of their sample of 2,370 UK suicides occurred within
three months of hospital discharge, the highest number of
these occurring within a week of discharge. These results,
in addition to others reflecting low rates of compliance
with treatment, poor attention to environmental safeguards,
poor continuity of care and follow-up considerations, and
data regarding suicide as a leading cause of malpractice
suits against mental health professionals together reflect
serious fault lines in the assessment and treatment/management
of at-risk persons.
Serious gaps remain in graduate
mental health training programs regarding the assessment
and management of suicidal patients (Berman, 1984; Bongar,
1991). As the National Strategy observed, mental health
professionals overall are "not adequately trained to
provide proper assessment, treatment, and management of
suicidal patientsor know how to refer them properly for
specialized assessment and treatment." (USDHHS, 2001:
p. 79).
Provided by American Association of Suicidology
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