Suicide prevention

Suicide prevention is an umbrella term for the collective efforts of local citizen organizations, health professionals and related professionals to reduce the incidence of suicide. Beyond direct interventions to stop an impending suicide, methods also involve a) treating the psychological and psycho-physiological symptoms of depression, b) improving the coping strategies of persons who would otherwise seriously consider suicide, c) reducing the prevalence of conditions believed to constitute risk factors for suicide, and d) giving people hope for a better life after current problems are resolved.

General efforts have included preventive and proactive measures within the realms of medicine and mental health, as well as public health and other fields. Because protective factors such as social support and social engagement, as well as environmental risk factors such as access to lethal means, appear to play significant roles in the prevention of suicide, suicide should not be viewed solely as a medical or mental health issue. Suicide prevention is risky for health professionals in terms of practitioner emotional distress and risk for malpractice suits.

Van Orden et al. (2010) posited that there are two major factors involved in suicide attempts. The first major factor is a desire for death and the second acquired capability. Desire for death occurs through ideations of thwarted belongingness it is described as feeling alienated from others emotionally and perceived burdensomeness it is described as feeling that one is incompetent and therefore a burden on others. The acquired capability in this context is used because people naturally fear death and painful experiences. The capability to carry out the suicide attempt is usually formed from emotional and physical pain and disrupted cognitive status and is acquired through previous suicide attempts (self-directed violence), rehearsing suicide through behavior or imagery, and getting used to painful or dangerous experiences in other ways.

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