Course Description

Suicide is a familiar subject to the mental health professional. Tondo and Baldessarini (2001) offer the following statistics: It comprises roughly 10% of psychiatric patient deaths. Life-threatening attempts exceed completed (fatal) suicides. Suicide is the third greatest cause of death for juveniles and young adults, and ranks as the eighth greatest cause across the life span. Suicide has an extraordinary impact on survivors; including family members, friends, co-workers, and even witnesses who do not know the person. It certainly has an impact on clinicians. Even the specter of liability that suicide risk holds over practitioners can affect judgment and professional satisfaction.

Suicide is notoriously difficult to predict, yet many suicides are predicted but are not prevented despite concerted effort. The majority of suicides result from mental illness and the majority of these are due to mood, psychosis, or alcohol dependence. (Frances, Franklin, & Flavin, 1987) Only a very low percentage of suicides occur among psychologically healthy individuals as a result of stressful life events. However, suicide risk tends to peak over a limited period for nearly all people who experience such risk. This contributes to our understanding of prevention, as limited as it is.

Most cultures confer great shame on suicide, seeing it as a personal or family failure. Unfortunately, moralistic cultural patterns can compound the stress that contributes to suicide, and confound efforts at prevention and treatment. It also suppresses the reporting of suicide statistics, particularly in certain countries. This is an obstacle to the development of social policies and infrastructure that could prevent suicide.

Learning Objectives:

After completing this training the health care professional will be able to:

• Have a historical perspective on suicide.
• Know rates of suicide overall and for various demographic groups.
• Understand the major causes and risk factors for suicide.
• Know the relative risks for various mental disorders, subtypes, and situational factors.
• Understand the role of mental disorders and life situations in suicide.
• Understand the relationship of comorbidities in risk.
• Have additional insight into the relationship of eating disorders and suicide.
• Know the status of medications in aiding or worsening suicide risk.
• Understand the legal issues such as confidentiality and involuntary commitment.