What is Suicide
Suicide exposures and bereavement among American adults
Why Doctors Must Solve the Suicide Problem
Source: www.mtv.com/news/2204380/project-semicolon-tattoo/
What is
Suicide? Suicide is a complex issue involving numerous factors and should not be attributed to any one single cause. Not all people who die by suicide have been diagnosed with a mental illness and not all people with a mental illness attempt to end their lives by suicide. People who experience suicidal thoughts and feelings are suffering with tremendous emotional pain. People who have died by suicide typically had overwhelming feelings of hopelessness, despair, and helplessness. Suicide is not about a moral weakness or a character flaw. People considering suicide feel as though their pain will never end and that suicide is the only way to stop the suffering. Many factors and circumstances can contribute to someone’s decision to end his/her life. Factors such as loss, addictions, childhood trauma or other forms of trauma, depression, serious physical illness, and major life changes can make some people feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. It is important to remember that it isn’t necessarily the nature of the loss or stressor that is as important as the individual’s experience of these things feeling unbearable. Suicide is Complex:
How Can Suicide Be Prevented The majority of suicides can be prevented. There are a number of measures that can be taken at community and national levels to reduce the risk, including:
At a more personal level, it is important to know that only a small number of suicides happen without warning. Most people who die by suicide give definite warnings of their intentions. Therefore, all threats of self-harm should be taken seriously. In addition, a majority of people who attempt suicide are ambivalent and not entirely intent on dying. Many suicides occur in a period of improvement when the person has the energy and the will to turn despairing thoughts into destructive action. However, a once-suicidal person is not necessarily always at risk: suicidal thoughts may return but they are not permanent and in some people they may never return. Source: World Health Organziation (WHO) How can suicide be prevented? Promoting Hope and Resiliency is Central to Suicide Prevention: Hope and Resiliency should be reflected in all suicide prevention activities and messaging. Suicide Prevention is Everyone’s Responsibility:
How We Talk About Suicide Makes a Difference:
Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention (Hope, Help, and Healing) are the three areas of focus when working in the area of suicide. They can be understood as the before, during and after experiences of thoughts of suicide, attempts or death. Everyone has a role and contribution to preventing suicide in one or more of these areas. You don’t have to be an expert. You do need to know how to take care of yourself and help another person get to safety if the need arises.
Certain Segments of Our Society, Especially Those Who Have Been Marginalized, are at Greater Risk of Suicide:
Societal Attitudes and Conditions Have a Profound Effect on Suicide and Suicide Prevention:
Suicide Prevention Should be Imbedded Into the Mosaic of Community Resources:
Suicide Prevention is Strengthened When it is Guided by the Principles of Trauma Informed Care:
Knowing When and How to Ask about Suicide Saves Lives:
Suicide Prevention Strategies and Programming Must be Knowledge-Based:
Suicide Prevention Leaders and Supporters Encourage Diverse Points of View:
Commitment to a Community Based Approach:
Suicide & Mental Illness There is no single mental illness diagnosis that is exclusively responsible for death by suicide. The majority of people who live with a mental illness do not attempt nor die by suicide. Some estimated facts:
Risk for death by suicide is increased
if a person suffers from depression alongside schizophrenia,
bipolar illness, substance abuse, anxiety disorders. Those
who struggle with a diagnosed personality disorder can be up
to 3x more likely to die by suicide than those without and,
risk is increased if they also struggle with a substance
abuse disorder. It is important to get treatment for a
mental illness. How Washington State
is Coping with QB Tyler Hilinski suicide More than two months later, it remains cold and abandoned as his teammates try to move on with football practice about a mile away. The front door also has a hole on the side where the knob should be, allowing the spring chill to blow inside until it’s finally repaired for new occupants. Nobody knows why Hilinski came back to this place to do what he did that day. The Washington State quarterback was in the process of moving into a new apartment with new roommates nearby. And then he never returned, leaving behind a team that is still coping with his suicide.. “Nobody was living there, so he knew nobody was going to be there,” said Peyton Pelluer, a senior linebacker who was going to be Hilinski’s new roommate this semester. More: QB Luke Falk pushes for suicide awareness, remembers Tyler Hilinski at Senior Bowl More: College football's last-placed teams headed for better things in 2018 season That’s their reason for where he went. They can’t find a reason for his final act. And nobody ever will – a fact that many of them have had trouble accepting as they go through a healing process that includes spring practice here this month. “Just like his family, we’re all still looking, and I’ve kind of come to terms where I’m not going to find an answer,” said Nick Begg, a defensive lineman who also was going to be Hilinski’s roommate this semester. “And if all of us keeping looking for an answer, we’re just going to beat ourselves up. There’s no easy way to put it, but you’re not going to find an answer, and you’ve just got to come terms with that I guess. Yeah. I feel for his family for that.” The tragedy happened Jan. 16, shortly after the start of the new semester. Hilinski’s roommates at his old apartment had graduated from the team and moved away. Hilinski was halfway into the move into his new home with Begg and Pelluer, getting ready to start a year that was supposed to be his best yet. Hilinski, 21, was the runaway favorite to be the team’s new starting quarterback after combining to throw 209 passes as a freshman and sophomore playing behind Luke Falk. His head coach, Mike Leach, described Hilinski as “very talented, very upbeat, one of those guys that cared about others and didn’t like conflict.” It was another kind of conflict, hidden inside him, that led Hilinski to take an unnamed teammate’s rifle without his knowledge. When Hilinski didn’t show up for a team weightlifting session that afternoon, the police were summoned and Hilinski soon was tracked down at his old apartment where a forced entry was made to get to him. Department officials called a team meeting as soon as news got out about his death. Police said the cause was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. “We felt like that it was very important that we bring everyone together so that they’re together,” said Sunday Henry, Washington State’s director of athletic medicine. “In this day and age of social media, we had to act very quickly, as soon as we found out what had happened.” 'You don’t want to be by yourself' The meeting erupted with sadness and shock. Meanwhile, Leach was stuck trying to get back to Pullman from his time off in Key West, Fla. Bad weather in Atlanta created scores of canceled flights, which left Leach stranded, clinging to his phone as he tried to reach out to people thousands of miles away. “It was a horrible deal,” Leach said. He arrived a couple days later and found some hope amid the grief. “When everything happened, there were counselors around our team and everybody within minutes,” Leach told USA TODAY Sports. “The response time was outstanding.” Henry, clinical psychologist Kate Geiger and counselor Jerry Pastore helped reach out across the athletic department to offer access to help such as counseling and therapy. The football team also went through a new round of mental health screening, and some players were identified as especially in need of support, with common problems such as sleep loss. Support also came from former players, some of whom flew in from tout of town. “We hung out at our place, just kind of all together,” Begg told USA TODAY Sports. “I don’t know how to explain it, but we just talked about it together and just kind of bonded together, because none of us wanted to be alone. You know what I mean? That’s not what you want to do in a situation like that. You don’t want to be by yourself.” Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for those in the age group of 15 to 24, according to the most recent data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. overall, with about 45,000 dying by suicide each year, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The foundation estimates the numbers are actually higher than that because the stigma associated with suicide leads to underreporting, much like mental health issues are underreported and unsupported. Athletes in particular are “supposed to be tough and not show any weakness, and mental health tends to be seen as a weakness,” Henry said. “It tends to be seen different than an ankle sprain or ACL tear, so they tend not to come forward. If they recognized it and came forward and took care of it, they would be stronger, happier people, just like with (getting help for) an ankle.” That’s the challenge, Henry said. “To make it OK” to tell somebody and get help. “That’s the opportunity we have here, to take this really sad thing that happened and turn it into a positive,” she said. 'Be kind to people’ This suicide stood out in particular for several reasons. Hilinski, from Claremont, Calif., was a high-profile college athlete with no apparent advance warning signs. He also was a leader of the team in a sport that glorifies toughness, shuns weakness and often has encouraged players to mask their pain. Depression and anxiety can be particularly tempting to keep secret if it might risk a loss of acceptance or status. “You definitely have got to be tough to play football, and it’s definitely a culture,” Begg said. “But stuff that’s going on in your head, you’ve definitely got to talk about those things.” The first practice without Hilinski was March 22, kicking off a spring practice season that lasts for several more weeks. Then preparations begin later this year for the season opener at Wyoming Sept. 1. Each is a step. “It’s been a process,” Pelluer said. “I think we made it over the hump, so to speak. It’s never going to be perfect. The hardest part was finding that new normal.” And trying to understand it. A suicide note was found, but Pullman police said state law restricts the note's details to family members. Hilinski’s family recently took out a half-page ad in The Seattle Times thanking Cougar fans for their support and saying the family didn't learn a motive. “The reality is we simply don’t know,” the ad said. “He didn’t quit. He didn’t give up on you. For some reason, he had no choice but to leave us. Don’t waste a second thinking he was weak.” Another death in the Cougar family added to the grief in February when one of the athletic department’s strength coaches, David Lang, 49, died suddenly of causes that weren’t immediately announced. “We saw things crop back up again,” Henry said of the reaction among athletes. For the football team, it’s not yet clear how it plans to memorialize Hilinski. The pieces are still being picked up, even at his old apartment, where the door appeared newly installed, without the knob yet as of March 28, replacing the old door that apparently was forced down. “Nobody has the answers, and that’s not for us to worry about,” Pelluer told USA TODAY Sports. “You never know what demons, so to speak, people are dealing with on a daily basis. That’s why it’s so important to live each day with a positive mindset. Just try to be the best version of yourself and be kind to people, because you just don’t know what kind of day they’re having.” New players are competing in spring practice, including at quarterback. And Leach still makes the hour-long walk to campus from his home and back, taking a shortcut through a field of garbanzo beans, the perfect time and space to clear his head. “Everybody I talked to that has
some experience with (suicide), they say it never makes
sense,” Leach said. “This isn’t any
exception.” Suicide:
What to do when someone is suicidal When someone says he or she is thinking about suicide, or says things that sound as if the person is considering suicide, it can be very upsetting. You may not be sure what to do to help, whether you should take talk of suicide seriously, or if your intervention might make the situation worse. Taking action is always the best choice. Here's what to do. Start by asking questions The first step is to find out whether the person is in danger of acting on suicidal feelings. Be sensitive, but ask direct questions, such as:
Asking about suicidal thoughts or feelings won't push someone into doing something self-destructive. In fact, offering an opportunity to talk about feelings may reduce the risk of acting on suicidal feelings. Look for warning signs You can't always tell when a loved one or friend is considering suicide. But here are some common signs:
For immediate help If someone has attempted suicide:
If a friend or loved one talks or behaves in a way that makes you believe he or she might attempt suicide, don't try to handle the situation alone:
Source: www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/suicide/in-depth/suicide/art-20044707
How Emergency
Departments Can Help Prevent Suicide among At-Risk Patients:
Five Brief Interventions This nine-minute video describes the unique role that emergency department (ED) professionals can play in preventing suicide by providing five brief interventions prior to discharge. It outlines the following interventions and provides tools to support their implementation: 
9:38 
Brief Patient Education: Help the patient understand their condition and treatment options and facilitate adherence to the follow-up plan. For more information. See the ED Guide. (57 page PDF - page 9)
Emergency Deparment professionals are in a unique position to improve outcomes for those at risk for suicide. They can play a critical role in preventing future suicides and attempts by attacking suicide risks through
Source: Caring for Adult Patients with Suicide Risk: A Consensus Guide for Emergency Departments www.sprc.org/edguide Safety Planning: Work with the patient to develop a list of coping strategies and resources that they can use before or during a suicidal crisis. See the ED Guide. (57 page PDF - page 10) Lethal Means Counseling: Assess the patient’s access to firearms, prescription and over-the-counter medications, and other lethal means and discuss ways to limit access until they are no longer suicidal. See the ED Guide. (57 page PDF - page 12). Rapid Referral: Schedule a follow-up outpatient mental health appointment for the patient that ideally occurs within 24 hours of discharge. See the ED Guide. (57 page PDF - page 14) Caring Contacts: Follow up with the discharged patient via postcards, letters, e-mail or text messages, or phone calls. See the ED Guide. (57 page PDF - page 14) To learn more about preventing suicide in ED patients, access the full and quick versions of our consensus guide and take our online course. Settings: Health Care, Emergency Departments Strategies: Effective Care/Treatment,
Treatment, Safety Planning, Care Transitions/Linkages,
Reduce Access to Means Is it
Possible to Assess Short-Term Risk of Suicide? Although we’re relatively good at knowing if someone has longer term risk factors for suicide, we are not as good at assessing if someone is at risk within hours, days or weeks. In addition, the time between someone having a suicidal idea and engaging in suicidal behavior can sometimes be very short. Predicting short-term, or imminent, suicide risk when a person is in an emergency department or clinician’s office can be difficult. We can’t rely solely on a person’ self-report of suicidal ideation. Dr. Igor Galynker developed a tool to identify when a person is in what he calls a “suicide trigger state.” According to Dr. Galynker, the main elements of the “suicide trigger state” (STS) include “ruminative flooding” and “frantic hopelessness.” Ruminative flooding refers to when a person has rapid and repeated negative thoughts that are both confusing and difficult to stop. Frantic hopelessness refers to the feeling that life will always be painful and unchangeable, along with an overwhelming feeling of being “trapped.” This combination of thoughts and feelings can trigger suicidal behavior. Question Is there a tool that can accurately measure when a person is in an acute, or short-term, suicidal state? Study Dr. Galynker developed the Suicide Trigger Scale or STS-3, a 42-item scale that assesses both longer term, as well as more immediate, thoughts and feelings related to suicidal behavior. The scale would be used in emergency departments and doctor’s offices to help predict short-term suicide risk. The STS-3 scale is unique in that it is designed to measure the elements associated with the trigger state, and not suicidal ideation per se. In fact, the scale does not ask about self-harm or suicidal ideation at all. Instead, it asks about uncontrollable, negative and hopeless thoughts (ruminative flooding), and the feeling that nothing will change (frantic hopelessness). During a study to assess the effectiveness of the scale, 175 adult psychiatric patients ages 18-65 were invited to participate. The STS-3 was administered on admission to the hospital for suicidal ideation or attempt, and again two to six months after discharge. 161 participants completed the scale on admission, and 54 completed follow-up assessments. Importantly, participants did not know that the study was specifically focused on suicidal ideation and behavior. The Columbia Suicide-Severity Rating Scale was used to assess recent suicidal ideation and behavior, and the National Death Index and hospitalization data were used to document any deaths. Results Overall, 13 of the 54 participants (24.1 percent) made a suicide attempt during the course of the study. Dr. Galynker’s STS-3 scale proved to be a significant predictor of suicide attempts among patients within six months of their release from a psychiatric inpatient setting. This confirmed the results of a previous study using STS-3 in an emergency department setting. Takeaway It may be possible to identify people who may be at short-term risk of suicidal behavior. Early identification offers an opportunity to save lives. Grant Related Publications Zimri Yaseen, Curren Katz, Matthew S Johnson, Daniel Eisenberg, Lisa J Cohen, Igor I Galynker (2010): Construct Development: The Suicide Trigger Scale (STS-2), a Measure of Hypothesized Suicide Trigger State, BMC Psychiatry, 10: 110. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/10/110 Zimri Yaseen, Evan Gilmer, Janki Modi, Lisa J Cohen, Igor I Galynker (2012): Emergency Room Validation of the Revised Suicide Trigger Scale (STS-3): A Measure of a Hypothesized Suicide Trigger State. PLoS ONE 7(9): e45157. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0045157 Zimri Yaseen, Irina Kopeykina, Zinoviy
Gutkovich, Anahita Bassirina, Lisa J Cohen, Igor I Galynker
(2014): Predictive Validity of the Suicide Trigger Scale
(STS-3) for Post-Discharge Suicide Attempt in High-Risk
Psychiatric Inpatients. PLoS ONE 9(1): e86768. doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0086768l Joint
Commission Gives Patient Suicide Prevention Tips to
Hospitals Suicide and
Immigrants: The Fight to Overcome Cultural Barriers In the case of Latino immigrants in particular, suicide (or its ideation) may be stigmatized as a sin or as a sign of cowardice. It is rarely spoken about as a health concern. "Many people think that suicide is a reaction to something bad that happens to a person, but actually it has well-defined biological basis,” said Dr. Maria Oquendo, president of the American Psychiatric Association, and professor and chairman of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. While the primary suicide trigger remains unknown, Oquendo said, "we know that suicide has a genetic basis and runs in families." "In those families where there have been suicides, the children have a higher susceptibility," she added. "It is the same as, for example, hypertension or diabetes. It is not one hundred percent certain that they will have the disease, but it does increase the probability." Among the Latino population, Dr. Oquendo says, adolescents are the most vulnerable. "We know that teenage girls have a certain vulnerability due to family conflicts — because of the cultural clash they experience. In some cases, they are required to behave in a more traditional way at home, and outside of the home it is very different. Like every teenager, [the Latina adolescent] wants to fit in." Those who leave the home — whether because they marry at an early age, leave to study or simply seek a different way — they don’t necessarily escape suicide ideation, however, because they are sometimes abused, or exposed to abuse. Waleska Maldonado of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, who for many years worked as a social worker at the Latino community organization Congreso, says that many teenagers who seek help for suicide prevention are affected by drug addiction, domestic violence or a poor socio-economic status. "Money is lacking in many homes," Maldonado said, "but the truth is, that if they understand where to look for help, things can improve." "Many of the girls we worked with gained confidence and trust through therapy. And they themselves tell of their experiences because that is one of the ways in which the treatment works,” she said. Maldonado is convinced that the mental health of immigrants, especially Latinos, can improve through open communication. "It is on us — those of us in these posts, in the press and the victims themselves — to speak out and to create a kind of network, by word of mouth, so that when these little girls arrive in this country for the first time, they know what to do and where to go for help,” Maldonado said. Organizations that offer mental health services, she said, need to not only inspire confidence in their patients but also help them maintain it. "The Hispanic community in Philadelphia needs help and each case depends on the respective circumstances. We know that sometimes circumstances push people into suicide, but we also know that many people are willing to fight for a better outcome. Nevertheless, they sometimes don’t know or understand what they should do because of language barriers,” Maldonado said. According to Erika Almirón, director of the Latino immigrant advocacy organization Juntos, the immigration experience itself can create "imbalance" among people who do not have the proper authorization to be in the country. "With the issue of raids and checkpoints, many people come to us with traumas. It's hard to explain. We know that the children of the detainees, for example, suffer and are too young to understand what is happening.” She said that during her visits to the Berks County Detention Center in Leesport she has heard several teenagers talk about suicide. "It's not something we work with, but as much as we can, we refer them to centers that offer mental health services at a low cost or for free." In 2016, Dr. Andrés Pumariega, chief of the Department of Psychiatry at Cooper University Hospital and a specialist in pediatric and adolescent psychiatry, traveled to several detention centers around the country as part of a government task force. The aim was to investigating immigration detention policies and offer mental health recommendations. Pumariega said the committee ultimately determined that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency should "close these places." He said that while there are no concrete statistics on suicidal ideation in detention centers, it is common among the detainees. "It's a very tragic situation for the women detained with their children," he said. "Those mothers feel desperate and do not know what will happen. Sometimes they do not have information and feel isolated." "They have gone through a journey that many of us would not survive," he added. "They travel across Mexico, cross the border, are abused, stripped of any money and even worse. They are lucky simply to be alive … They put on a brave face, but many think of suicide, and their children do, too. There are adolescents we wrote about in the report [the task force filed] who told us they were going to hang themselves with their ID [lanyards].” Treatment and Help The light at the end of the tunnel can be found in the innovative approaches to illness or mental health problems that have arisen in recent years. According to Dr. Oquendo, there is a new "very impactful" protocol to treat suicide — "safety planning." "It's basically giving people the tools to deal with the strong emotions they are experiencing,” she said. "They outline for you, step by step, what you can do to feel better, starting with simple things such as distracting yourself by running, shopping or even watching a movie," before moving on to other more complex and heroic steps. Another form of treatment is therapy accompanied by medication. According to Ana Ortíz, a clinical psychologist who works at the Asociación de Puertorriqueños en Marcha (APM), "psychotherapy is like a school, that together with medication and learning positive reinforcement skills, helps people achieve their goal, to continue living." She added that medication is important because it enables health care providers to work on the physiological aspect of emotions to help attain a type of stability. But for every expert looking at the
problem of suicide in the immigrant community, three
elements form the core of any and every treatment: Speaking
up. Seeking help. Telling your story. Evidence-Based Prevention Evidence-based prevention includes:
Engaging in Evidence-Based Practice Evidence-based practice has been defined as "the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of communities and populations in the domain of health protection, disease prevention, health maintenance and improvement (health promotion)."1 Examples include:2
Conducting sound evaluation Disseminating what is learned These processes and activities are a part of SPRC's strategic planning approach to suicide prevention, which recognizes that suicide prevention efforts are more likely to succeed if they are guided by the best evidence available. Using Evidence to Select or Develop Programs One of the key steps in strategic planning is to make decisions about the programs and practices that will be a part of your comprehensive approach to suicide prevention. Selecting Programs Good sources of information regarding evidence-based programs are registries (lists of programs that have been evaluated) and literature reviews (articles that summarize findings from different studies). See these pages of our website for information and resources:
SPRC's Designation: "Programs with Evidence of Effectiveness" Some programs in SPRC’s Resources and Programs page are designated as “programs with evidence of effectiveness.” These are programs that have been evaluated and found to result in at least one positive outcome related to suicide prevention. Programs labeled as evidence-based may have stronger or weaker evidence. At SPRC, we use the phrase "programs with evidence of effectiveness" to refer to programs with any level of evidence. See each listing for the source of the program, specific outcomes reviewed, and evidence ratings. SPRC’s sources for programs with evidence of effectiveness:
Things to keep in mind about evidence-based programs:
Adapting or Developing a Program Even if you can’t find an evidence-based program that meets your needs, your efforts can still be informed by evidence. When adapting a suicide prevention program or developing a new one, make sure that it:
Cultural Considerations Using culturally competent approaches is another important key to success. One challenge is that many evidence-based programs for suicide prevention have not been assessed in diverse populations, so their effectiveness with these populations is not known. When implementing an evidence-based program that was done with a population different from the one your program will be targeting, consider doing a small pilot test first. Practice-based evidence (PBE) is a term sometimes used to refer to practices that are embedded in local cultures and are accepted as effective by the community. Practitioners of PBE models draw upon cultural knowledge to develop programs that are respectful of and responsive to local definitions of wellness. In some cases, PBE also refers to a participatory, "ground up" approach to designing programs, as opposed to a "top-down" process in which programs are developed by academic researchers and then disseminated to local communities. To the extent possible, PBE programs should be evaluated, so that they can add to the evidence base for suicide prevention. For more information, see Emerging Evidence in Culture-Centered Practices in NREPP's Learning Center. Our Settings section provides information and resources for conducting suicide prevention activities in various settings. For information on practices that are culturally appropriate for American Indian/Alaska Native settings, see our Promising Prevention Practices page. References 1. Jenicek, M. (1997). Epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, and evidence-based public health. Journal of Epidemiology, 7, 187-197. Retrieved from: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea1991/7/4/7_4_187/_pdf 2. Brownson, R. C., Fielding, J. E., & Maylahn, C. M. (2009). Evidence-based public health: A fundamental concept for public health practice. Annual Review of Public Health, 30(1), 175–201. Recommended Resources Understanding
Evidence Source: www.sprc.org/keys-success/evidence-based-prevention
2:10Learning More about Suicide: Responsible Reporting
Does the Way
Media Reports on Suicide Impact Rates of Suicide? Preventing access to lethal means can save lives, particularly for those with impulsive suicidal thoughts. Lowered rates of suicide in areas that have erected barriers on bridges are one example. Conversely, media reporting on suicide can give rise to a contagion effect, also known as the Werther Effect, whereby a publicized suicide can precipitate suicidal behavior in those at risk. Media coverage and published articles with certain keywords and opinions toward suicide can have an impact on suicide rates. The Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto, Canada is a site that had a high rate of suicide, making the construction of a barrier a critical prevention effort. Media reporting surrounding the bridge was frequent, and increased in the four years after the building of the Bloor Street Viaduct in 2003. The suicide rate would seem to have been met by two opposing forces: on the one hand, the barriers would potentially reduce the rate. On the other, media reporting would possibly increase the rate. A study conducted by Dr. Mark Sinyor looked at the effect of a barrier limiting access to lethal means on the rate of suicide, as well as the impact of media attention. Question Does the way media reports on suicide impact rates of suicide? Study The first goal of Dr. Mark Sinyor’s study was to look at elements of media reporting and their relationship to suicide. Records from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario of those who had died by suicide were examined and categorized by suicide method. Next, media reporting on suicide by local and national publications in the Toronto media market were examined, along with special attention paid to keywords related to suicide. If articles were related to the Bloor Street Viaduct, they were coded in relation to: 1) the Bloor Street Viaduct, 2) negative views about suicide barriers, and/or the cost of the barrier, 3) suicide deaths from a bridge other than the Bloor Street Viaduct, and 4) inclusion in the reporting of a hopeful message that suicide is preventable. Suicide rates before and after the barrier was erected were compared. Suicide rates were also examined in relation to media reporting. The second goal of the study was to test for the effect of media reporting about the suicide barrier on suicide rates, both shortly after the barrier construction, and eleven years later. Results There was an increase in suicide deaths shortly after construction of the barrier. Media articles mainly tended to focus on the cost and use of the barrier. In the long term, however, suicide rates on bridges, as well as by other means in Toronto, decreased after the Bloor Street Viaduct barrier was constructed. Media reports that contained hopeful messages were associated with decreased suicide rates. The study thus concluded that negative reporting initially led to a temporary increase in the suicide rate in the area, but that the barrier, in conjunction with the more positive reporting that accompanied the declining rates, ultimately had a positive effect. Takeaway
Source: afsp.org/does-the-way-media-reports-on-suicide-impact-rates-of-suicide/
One patient at a
time, this Wash U program works to reduce gun
suicides In 2016, there were roughly 10 suicides per 100,000 residents, and more than half were gun-related. Yet despite the statistics, only about half of emergency-room doctors in the U.S. ask patients at risk of suicide if they have access to guns at home. A new Washington University program aims to tackle this issue directly by working with patients at risk of suicide before they’re discharged from the hospital. The Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (C.A.L.M.) program helps patients temporarily store dangerous items they may have at home, including guns and prescription medication. "It’s a distinctly proactive approach," said Kristen Mueller, a Barnes-Jewish Hospital emergency-room doctor and C.A.L.M. program coordinator. “As a physician, I got into the game to help save lives,” said Mueller. “There’s only so many patients I could take care of in the emergency department before we started to say, 'Enough is enough.' What can we do to start preventing this from happening in the first place?” The program, which is funded through grants from the Washington University Institute for Public Health and the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation, trains research coordinators using online materials from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. As part of the program, research coordinators work one-on-one with patients to help identify if they have access to guns at home. “You do your best to get an assessment of what’s immediately available,” said registered nurse and C.A.L.M. research coordinator Chris Kriedt. “I’ll ask, ‘Do you have a firearm readily available? Is it loaded? If you were in a crisis moment, would you be able to reach over and just pick it up?’” During the initial assessment, Kriedt helps patients who have access to guns come up with a plan for storing them. Patients may opt to store their guns temporarily at a local gun range, for instance, or in the home of a friend. Research coordinators have worked with 15 patients through the C.A.L.M. program since its inception in December. Kriedt said a key component of the program is following up with patients two to three days after they have left the hospital. “I believe that some kind of support after the fact, after the hospital, after the emergency room, is important. Because people, I think, feel like they’re left high and dry,” said Kriedt. “They’re told to follow up, but they don’t have anybody to help them along the way.” Suicide prevention initiatives often face a number of challenges, including the stigma associated with mental health issues. Mueller hopes the C.A.L.M. program will help normalize the idea that it’s not a weakness to have mental health issues or signs of depression. “Many people are perfectly comfortable talking about child safety seats in their cars, talking about whether or not they wear their seatbelt, talking about whether they’re smoking or not smoking,” said Mueller. “This is just another aspect of personal and public health.” There are also deep-seated misconceptions about suicide risk. The rate of gun-related suicide varies substantially based on demographics, with white males over the age of 55 at the highest risk in Missouri. Men are also seven times more likely to die by gun suicide than women in Missouri, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The C.A.L.M. program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital will continue through December, after which organizers will conduct an assessment and determine whether to continue the program long term. “The benefit would be even if one
person from this entire study stores their firearm safely
and doesn’t commit suicide, to me, that makes it worth
it,” Mueller said. (Editor's note: C.A.L.M. is SPRC`s free self-paced online course to improve your knowledge and skills in suicide prevention. It is especially for clinicians and other service providers, educators, health professionals, public officials, and members of community-based coalitions who are responsible for developing and implementing effective suicide prevention programs and policies.) (Editor's
note two: People ask why physicians are treating
psychosocial issues and social workers are seemingly not
involved. Possibly because it is NOT a requirement for
psychologists and mental health professionals (therapists,
social workers, etc) to have suicide prevention training as
part of their license or as continuing education. Of course
some may take it as an 'option', but it is NOT required.
Oregon tried to change that to make is mandatory in this
2017 legislative session with SB 48 but there was too much
resistance from CO and some of the legislators that it was
changed to a suggestion and passed. Our thought: if you
suffer from anxiety, depression, suicide thoughts and want
help from a mental health professional, don't assume that
just because they have an professional looking license to
practice, that they have the necessary training in
suicidality to help keep you from killing yourself. It is
too big of a risk.) Three-digit
national suicide hotline moves a step closer Introducing the legislation on the Senate floor in May, Sen. Orrin Hatch said constituents have told him that friends and family who've struggled with suicidal thoughts don't always know where to turn. Calls to suicide hotline spike after VMA performance "To make matters worse, the national suicide hotline number, 1-800-273-TALK, is not an intuitive or easy number to remember, particularly for those experiencing a mental health emergency," the Utah Republican said. Hatch gave the example of one young Utah woman who tried to call her counselor before her suicide -- but couldn't reach her. "I believe that by making the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline system more user-friendly and accessible, we can save thousands of lives by helping people find the help they need when they need it most," he said. (Editor's note: I believe that the Portland, OR area has a 9-1-1 text service to match the 9-1-1 phone service. This service is for extreme crisis and will bring emergency service as would the 9-1-1 phone call. Texting to a crisis line that's easy to remember like 741741 is still for a crisis but gives the texter a trained counselor to text with instead of bringing in 9-1-1. It has proven to be very successful to reach teens in crisis since so many of them won't call a suicide phone line. They don't even talk on their cell phones. But they do text.) Record increases in suicide rate The suicide rate in the United States has seen sharp increases in recent years. It's now the 10th leading cause of death in the country, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Young people are particularly vulnerable: In Hatch's home state of Utah, suicide is the leading cause of death among teens. '13 Reasons Why' tied to rise in suicide searches online The existing crisis phone line, and the crisis text line, is staffed by a mix of paid professionals and unpaid volunteers trained in crisis and suicide intervention. When people use it, the risk of suicide declines sharply, studies show. The confidential environment, the 24-hour accessibility, a caller's ability to hang up at any time and the person-centered care have helped its success, advocates say. The bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to work with the Health and Human Services Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs to study the existing system, suggest ways to improve it -- and recommend a new three-digit number. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in November, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering an identical bill with strong bipartisan support, according to its sponsors.
"Too many of us have experienced the tragic loss of life and heartbreak that results from suicide. Those who have experienced this tragedy have expressed to me that, while there are many resources for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis, it can be difficult to find these resources during a time of need," bill co-sponsor and Utah Republican Rep. Chris Stewart said. "The National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act works to streamline and provide easy access to potentially life-saving resources." Renewed attention on the current number has increased calls, according to program managers. Rapper Logic put 1-800-273-Talk in a song. After he performed it on MTV and while surrounded by survivors at the Grammy Awards in January, there was an immediate spike in calls. Two million people called the crisis line in 2017, up from 1.5 million in 2016. In January, calls were up 60% from January 2017. 'We know it works' "People want access to these lines. We have seen calls increase every year since they have been in operation, and this is an extraordinary time in which more people are reaching out for help, and we are very pleased with that because we know it works, but it does come with some challenges," said the Lifeline's executive director, John Draper. The challenges, according to John Madigan, vice president of public policy at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, are funding and infrastructure. He hopes the new legislation will improve that quickly. "What we have now is a critical nationwide system, but as you might imagine, it is being overwhelmed," Madigan said. When callers are able to connect, there is a 76% de-escalation in risk of suicide once they start talking and working collaboratively with counselors. But, he added, "picture the little boy with the finger in the dike." Madigan thinks a budget for the civilian crisis line "needs to be ramped up substantially." He agrees that a streamlined number would be a big improvement. "Three digits, if you are in crisis, would help. Everyone, even 1- and 2-year-olds, know to call 911" if there's an emergency. "It's high time we make it as easy as
possible to get help." Why Doctors
Must Solve the Suicide Problem Between 1999 and 2014 the rate of suicide in the United States increased an alarming 24%. In 2016, the last year for which data was collected, the rate crept up another 1.2 percentage points, and suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the country. The problem is clear, but gaining support for solutions has been hard to come by, says Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the largest private funder of suicide research in the country. Moutier helped launch Project 2025, an ambitious AFSP program that aims to reduce suicides by 20% in the next seven years. The bulk of the program focuses on roles that physicians and health systems can play. The most promising way forward, she believes, is to help clinicians identify patients at risk and provide care that can slow this epidemic. Q: How did you get involved in suicide prevention? A: When I was a dean at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, we lost 13 faculty physicians to suicide over 15 years. That got us asking questions: What drives up suicide risk, especially for physicians? Can risk spread in a community? Can suicides be prevented? Our investigations helped shape a suicide prevention program at the school that is now in its tenth year. Q: Why does Project 2025 focus on the role of physicians? A: The data show that, nationally, quite diverse groups are at high risk—middle-aged white males and females, veterans, active-duty military, LGBT populations, the geriatric population, young Native American males and Latina teenagers. Trying to target all these groups separately is really challenging. We realized that the greatest opportunity is to employ evidence-based interventions in the settings where clinicians encounter all these at-risk groups: in emergency departments, primary and behavioral health clinics, and correctional facilities. Q: How did you come up with a national strategy? A: We gathered a panel of 25 experts that included scientists, clinical and policy experts, people who have experience of attempted suicide, and the survivors of those who have died by suicide. Together we surveyed the literature. We looked for what approaches clearly work to reduce suicides, if you can expose enough at-risk people. We found, for example, that treating someone who shows up in the ER after a suicide attempt with proven approaches—such as cognitive behavioral therapy—reduces repeat attempts and hospitalizations by about 50% for the following 12 to 24 months. We specifically sought out interventions that could feasibly be implemented, either regionally or, ideally, at a national level. Q: How is that different from past approaches? A: The most common prevention approach has been community education and raising awareness, but measuring the impact of education on suicide rates is difficult—and talking about suicide in graphic or sensationalized ways can encourage contagion. Other approaches have included screening, but not necessarily with an emphasis on follow-up care. Q: What kind of training can help a clinician prevent suicide? A: Clinicians can learn how to think about suicide prevention as a continuous quality and safety practice, always running in the back of their minds. You make it a priority to recognize changes in risk that a patient faces over the continuum of care. When you identify that someone is at risk, or if the risk has recently increased, you focus on helping that person stay alive. You involve families when possible, and you employ safety planning and counseling about lethal means as part of every encounter. All these steps are known to reduce risk. As basic as it is, you can also follow up by phone or another method. That has been robustly shown to reduce suicide rates for at-risk patients, particularly following discharge from the ER or a psychiatric unit. Q: Suicide rates climbed a bit in 2016. That seems like a curveball in Project 2025’s goals, doesn’t it? A: One likely possibility contributing to rising rates is that as the stigma associated with suicide goes down, the more often coroners and medical examiners will correctly label suicide deaths. Based on a limited amount of data, it is estimated that 10% to 15% of suicides are not called suicides. We are also committed to helping end that stigma. So even if the actual rate stays the same or begins to fall, it may look like it’s climbing for a period of time. It’s also important to note that
at the federal level, funding for suicide prevention
research remains far too low. The total federal annual
allocation for suicide-related research, including National
Institutes of Health and other funders, is approximately $50
million, versus in the hundreds of millions to billions for
many other leading causes of death. We do believe that if we
use those dollars wisely and scale up the key interventions
that have been proven to reduce suicide risk, we can begin
to move the needle. Best
Practices For Covering Suicide
Report on suicide as a public health issue, not a crime.
Man
Therapy Man Therapy™ provides men
approaching crisis, and the people who care about them, a
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head test, find local resources, and learn valuable tips
about topics like fighter jets, how to make guacamole, and
what to do when you or someone you care about is in a
crisis. Contemplating
Suicide? What I’d Say to a Jumper I can also speak with a little bit of authority on this subject because as a bridgetender I cross paths with people attempting suicide several times a year. I’ve never actually spoken to one of these people. Either the police rescue them before they jump or they make good on their attempt. I’ve often thought about what I’d say if I came upon a jumper on my bridge and no one else was there. I’m not trained in any way so I’m probably the last person that should be thrust into that situation, and I’d avoid it if I could, but if I had no other choice, what would I do to try to convince them not to take that last irreversible step? First I’d introduce myself and ask for his or her name. Then I would say, “I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t know why you want to jump. I’m sure you have your reasons, and they’re none of my business. But I’d like to tell you that this is probably the most important conversation I’ve ever had in my life, because I think you are important in this world. I think you have value. I really believe that every day you impact and influence people and you probably don’t even realize it. Some day, a month, a year, a decade from now, someone will cross your path who will need your influence. If you’re not there to do so, that person may never have the future he or she deserves.” “I also think that things can change on a dime. You never know what tomorrow will bring. But if you jump, you’ll never get to find out. One thing tomorrow can bring for you is help. Someone to talk to. People who will take you seriously. And they are out there. I promise. We’ll make sure you get a chance to talk to those people, if only you stick around to do so. “The fact that you’re still listening to me means that you are having second thoughts. That’s good. That means you still have choices. You can still not jump, and then you have a whole world of possibilities. I can tell you this. Every single jumper, without exception, screams on the way down. That means they regret their decision the minute they step into thin air. But by then it’s too late. And that sentiment has been universally confirmed by the rare people who survive jumping off a bridge. They say they wish they had never done it. Can you imagine that feeling of terror? Wanting desperately to take something back but not being able to do so? Would you want that to be the last feeling you have? I don’t want that for you. “I can also tell you that it’s not as easy a way to go as you might think. See that concrete and wooden fender system down there? I’ve heard jumpers hit that thing, and you can hear their bones break all the way up here. That sound will haunt me for the rest of my life, and now that I know your name, it would be even worse. But even if you miss the fender system it’s bad. Your organs are lighter than your skeleton, so when you hit the water, your skeleton rushes past your organs, forcing them all to move up into your chest cavity. I can’t imagine that type of pain. It’s a horrible, horrible way to go. “I don’t have all the answers. In fact, my life is pretty messed up. But I really do believe there’s more out there for you than this. You wouldn’t be feeling so hurt or scared or depressed or angry about your situation if you didn’t believe you deserved more, too. Don’t take away your chance to find out what’s out there. Right now you can go in any direction you want. Left, right, forward, backward, up or down. If you jump, all you’ll be left with is down. If you feel like you have no hope now, imagine how you’ll feel when you’ve only got one direction left to go.” I don’t know. Maybe that would be the wrong thing to say to a jumper. Maybe it would do no good. But that’s what I’d want to say. 17 thoughts on “Contemplating Suicide? What I’d Say to a Jumper” Carole Sometime, knowing that someone else “sees” your pain is all it takes. Those that reach the edge are in a fog so thick they cannot see anything in any direction. But if someone reaches out their hand just long enough for their words to reach the heart, lives can be saved. Thank You to the person who reached me. DECEMBER 3, 2013 AT 6:28 AM REPLY The View from a Drawbridge And my great appreciation to that person as well. The world would be a much bleaker place without you, Carole. DECEMBER 3, 2013 AT 6:42 AM REPLY pouringmyartout Very thoughtful. I do want them to put little kiosks on the bridge where people who are thinking of jumping can answer a few quick questions… oh man… I am going to do a post about this… I will give you credit… DECEMBER 4, 2013 AT 9:26 AM Pingback: Pardon me, but before you leap to your watery doom, would you mind filling out this questionnaire first? | The View from a Drawbridge The View from a Drawbridge Here’s the blog entry my friend Art mentioned. https://theviewfromadrawbridge.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/pardon-me-but-before-you-leap-to-your-watery-doom-would-you-mind-filling-out-this-questionnaire-first/ DECEMBER 5, 2013 AT 8:22 AM REPLY msb4life I agree with Carole…. It does take for someone to help pull that person out of the dark and help them ground themselves. You get so lost you don’t even know who you are anymore. You are shocked by your reaction to things, become disappointed and there goes the cycle that makes self worth seem like nothing. Idk I think when it gets to the point where a person is taking their own life, at that moment they feel like there is no support for them…. Even when he/she has a contact full if friends and family that wants to called. Barb, you would be able to save a life…. You have done so already. DECEMBER 5, 2013 AT 12:09 PM REPLY msb4life I agree with Carole…. All it takes is for someone to reach out and help ground the person. You get so lost in the dark that you don’t know who you are anymore. You become shocked by your reaction to things and then become disappointed that you view life in this negative way…. Then the cycle hits you and at times you feel like it can’t get better. The deepest depression will make you feel like you have no connection to the world…. Even when you have a contact book full of supportive family and friends that await your call. Support is big… Just being there to listen is big. Barb you are always a life saver DECEMBER 5, 2013 AT 10:27 AM REPLY The View from a Drawbridge You are going to be a positive force in the world, M, just give yourself the chance. Love you. DECEMBER 5, 2013 AT 12:10 PM REPLY KerrickM That picture looking down from the tower scares the @#$%^&* out of me. I support the right of a person to
decide when their life will end, but I think there’s a
lot of times that isn’t really the best choice, and I
wish they’d leave bridges out of it. We have a high one
in this town that is famous for such incidents, and the DOT
just put up barriers on it so you get your view as if
through a cage. Of course, making the social changes that
will make it possible for people to get the help they need,
and not fall into bad situations in the first place,
that’s out of the question… The
Jumper Squad The plunge, at a speed of more than 60 miles per hour, would surely kill him. Detectives Marc Nell and Everald Taylor, tethered to the bridge and to their rescue truck with nylon harnesses and heavy rope, knew to resist the urge to pull the man to safety. It was not time yet. “Tell me your name,” Detective Nell said, tapping into the emotional and psychological arsenal that he had acquired in training. “Talk to me.” “Think of your family.” Sometimes the detectives do most or all of the talking. It does not always matter. What the detectives are probing for is not necessarily conveyed in words. They are looking for an opening. A moment of doubt. “Once you see that light, you see their facial expression change, their body posture change, and you think: ‘Oh, I got them. O.K., they are not going anywhere,’ ” Detective Nell said. “It’s like when a boxer gets that shot and he knows that the opponent is wobbly and he just keeps going at that same spot.” In this case, Detectives Nell and Eddie Torres, a third officer who had joined the rescue, did what they refer to as the Grab. They seized the man, pulling him off the ledge and over a guardrail. Each year, the Police Department receives hundreds of 911 calls for so-called jumper jobs, or reports of people on bridges and rooftops threatening to jump. So far this year, that number is on track to surpass last year’s total, 519. The department’s Emergency Service Unit responds to those calls. The roughly 300 officers in the unit are specially trained in suicide rescue, the delicate art of saving people from themselves; they know just what to say and, perhaps more important, what not to say. “You wouldn’t want to say, ‘Yeah, things are bad and who knows if they can even get better,’ ” Inspector Robert Lukach, the unit’s executive, said. “You always have to be positive. I like to tell my guys: Bring yourself into it. If he says, ‘Oh, I’m having problems with my wife,’ say: ‘Yeah, I have problems with my wife, too. My wife just yelled at me yesterday for not doing the dishes.’ ” The officer’s goal is to form a rapport with the person and seize upon the one emotional chord that will get him or her to climb down from the edge. “You have to understand and extend yourself because your obvious goal is to save someone’s life,” Inspector Lukach said. “So if you have to give a little, you give a little. That’s the sacrifice you make.” The mental gymnastics can go on for hours, and do not always pay off. On a cold day this past winter, Detective Taylor was talking to a psychiatric patient who had squeezed through a sixth-floor bathroom window at Bellevue Hospital Center. The man’s toes barely fit on a building lip below, so he mostly clung to the window ledge by his fingers. He told the detective that he had killed somebody a few years back and could no longer live with the guilt. “O.K., we all make mistakes,” Detective Taylor said he told him. “That doesn’t mean you should take your life. We’re all human beings. None of us are perfect.” “Why don’t you just push me? Why don’t you just end it for me?” the man goaded the detective, who recounted his words. “That’s not my purpose for being here,” Detective Taylor gently told him. For nearly three hours, Detective Taylor leaned out a seventh-floor window, talking, buying time, as other officers cut away window glass to create an opening large enough to make a grab. Detective Taylor sensed the man was ready to come in. He was shirtless and cold; his muscles quivered. He asked for a blanket, the detective recalled. “Fatigue set in,” he said. “He was extending his arms to me, but I couldn’t reach him. At that point, he panicked a little bit, and that’s when he kind of groaned and said, ‘O.K.,’ and he left — fell.” Detective Taylor, who has worked in emergency services for 12 years, spoke in a low voice, pausing pensively between words. “That was my first failure,” he said. “That was the one and only time that I lost someone I was talking to.” On a recent afternoon, the pathways on the Brooklyn Bridge buzzed with tourists and bicyclists enjoying a golden early fall day. Traffic hummed along. Then two words — broadcast over police radios across the city — brought the flow to a halt: Jumper up. A young man had climbed out on the bridge’s outer beam. From his perspective, midway along the south side, the man saw his life at a low point. As they always do in the midst of a rescue, the police stopped traffic in both directions and shut down pedestrian and bicycle pathways. Many of the people and drivers on the bridge below resented the interruption. “Come on! Jump already,” yelled a bicyclist stuck at the foot of the bridge in Lower Manhattan. He let loose a string of expletives. A rumor spread among the crowd that the man was up there eating a sandwich. “He just wanted a nice perch to eat his lunch like some crazy guy,” a pedestrian said. Drivers threw up their hands and tap-tapped their car horns. Taxi passengers, dressed in business attire, took out their cellphones; they would be late. On building rescues, the reactions of onlookers are as varied as the city’s neighborhoods. In Midtown Manhattan or the financial district, for instance, pedestrians are more likely to yell, “Jump!”; in residential areas, like Harlem or Brooklyn, where the would-be jumper might be a familiar face, residents will provide officers with information about the person. They will cheer and applaud officers who make a successful grab, Detective Taylor said. On this day, Detective Peter Keszthelyi, a member of the unit for 12 years, needed to focus. He stood on a catwalk that stretched across the bridge’s car lanes and carefully made his way over to the man. “Traffic was horrible,” Detective Keszthelyi recalled. “Everybody was yelling at me. New York is ‘Hurry up and move or get out of my way.’ ” The 40-year-old detective tuned out the angry din and zeroed in on the man before him. “I’m not here to hurt you in any way,” he offered gently. The detective asked the man’s story, what brought him out here, and a dialogue began. The man, in his early 20s, explained that he had no job and no place to live, Detective Keszthelyi said. “You might seem like you are alone, but you are not really alone,” he told him. Lots of people lose jobs — and find others they like better, he said. “You just have to find something in life that you enjoy doing, and when you find that special thing in life, you are going to be successful at it,” Detective Keszthelyi assured him. The man wanted to know what would happen if he came down. The officers know to be truthful. “In my experience, you don’t want to lie to somebody like that,” Detective Keszthelyi said. The detective told him that he would be escorted into an ambulance and taken to a hospital, where he would be evaluated and assigned a social worker and therapist. The man thought it over and then said: “I want to give it another chance. I want to come down.” Detective Keszthelyi and other officers secured the man to their safety lines and walked him off the beam and down the ladder. “He was honestly one of the nicest kids,” the detective said in a telephone interview two hours after the rescue. “He was just in a bad place, and it didn’t seem like he had anybody to turn to. I felt really bad for him.” THE Emergency Service Unit is among the most coveted assignments in the Police Department. Officers must have five years of patrol experience before they are eligible for the unit. They must pass an oral interview, a physical agility test and a swim test. Officers who are selected then go through at least six months of training. Rescuing would-be jumpers is only part of their portfolio: They also learn how to properly suppress a fire, extricate an accident victim from a crushed car, rescue people in swift waters and anchor and tie ropes for bridge and building rescues. There are several specialized teams within the unit. The Apprehension Tactical Team, for instance, brings in violent felony suspects; the detective involved in the shooting of an unarmed man on Thursday on the Grand Central Parkway was assigned to that duty and was part of a team that had just executed a warrant in the Bronx. Unit officers also take a three-week course to become certified emergency medical technicians and a weeklong emergency psychological course. The opportunity to help people, affording them a second chance, feels like a privilege, said Detective Dennis Canale, of Emergency Truck 5 on Staten Island. Detective Canale’s squad supervisor, Sgt. Anthony Lisi, said he repeatedly stressed to his officers that if a person jumped, it was not their fault. “That’s not necessarily a failure on our part,” Sergeant Lisi said. “That was their stronger will to want to hurt themselves. You don’t want to take that home with you, that you were the cause of someone’s demise, which you were not.” On jobs that last for hours, officers try to rotate talking to the person. “If you have the ability to switch off, it’s good to do because your brain can wear on you,” said Detective Nell, who worked in emergency service from 2001 to 2010. “Your brain can get tired, and it could be cold, raining. It could be hot. I had a guy who just didn’t say anything to us. He’s just sitting there. We would constantly ask him questions over and over. We had an officer speaking Spanish just in case there was a language barrier. He wouldn’t say a word. You waited and you just kept talking and talking and pleading with the guy. It went on for hours.” “Finally, he was distracted,” the detective added, “and one of the guys just grabbed him, but he never said a word to us the whole time.” There have been times, however, when an officer has established a rapport with someone who then refused to talk to anyone else. In that case, the officer must continue talking, or stay “online,” as the officers call it. “It’s just you and that person for as long as it takes,” Detective Nell said. Some people will ask officers to bring a loved one to the scene. Officers are trained to redirect the conversation, offering, “We’ll see what we can do.” “Sometimes when someone asks for a specific person to be brought there, especially a person they are upset at, they are looking to do the act in front of them, so you don’t want to take that chance,” Detective Nell said. Sergeant Lisi’s squad responds to emergency calls on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The walkways up the bridge’s main cables are so steep that officers in the squad said they often have to stop to catch their breath while scaling them. It is nearly 230 feet from the water to the bridge’s upper deck, and almost 700 feet to the top of the towers. The chances of surviving a leap from the Verrazano are minuscule. It is unlike the more forgiving and much lower Brooklyn Bridge, and emergency service officers were hard-pressed to recall anyone who had survived the Verrazano, at least in recent years. A dramatic rescue unfolded on the Verrazano in July, when officers talked down a man from an outer ledge, mid-span, who told officers he was distraught over arguments with his teenage daughter. The officers determined that he spoke Cantonese and brought in an officer from the Fifth Precinct, Yi Huang, to help interpret. During four hours of negotiations, Detective Canale shared his own hardships with the man, divulging his anguish and despair when his son was found to have brain cancer. The boy, now 6, beat back the disease. “I explained to him that my son was sick, gravely sick,” Detective Canale said. “I told him everybody goes through issues. You can’t give up in this world. You have to fight on.” Detective Canale said the man hugged him and shook Officer Ralph Stallone’s hand just before leaving in an ambulance. At the top of each bridge he climbs, Officer Stallone leaves a purple rubber wristband in memory of a 15-month-old nephew who died of a genetic disorder in 2010. Detective Nell said he sometimes wondered what happened to those he had helped: Did they get their lives together? Did they try to kill themselves again? He recalled a Bronx man who plunged off an apartment balcony on the 32nd floor of a Co-op City building in December 2005. The man’s foot got caught in the railing of a balcony on the 31st floor and he was dangling by his ankle. Detective Nell, along with other emergency workers, grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up. The detective remembered how a female paramedic touched the man’s shoulder and said, “It wasn’t your time.” There are those who, even after having been rescued, do not seem grateful. “Maybe they will down the road,” said Detective Darren McNamara, who recently dived into the Hudson River and swam out to a suicidal woman. As he grabbed her, according to the detective, she looked at him flatly and said, “Why did you do that?” And while potential jumpers often wait for officers to arrive because they may want to be talked out of killing themselves, there are those who never give officers the chance. Detective Canale recalled a man who leapt from a lower stretch of the Verrazano and struck the rocks below. The man was still alive when the detective got to him, though many of his bones were broken, his internal organs ruptured. As the man’s shattered body was
secured to a long board and he was administered oxygen, the
man, in some of his final words, said he regretted jumping,
the detective recalled. “I can’t get this right,
either,” the man said, according to Detective Canale.
“I told him: ‘We’re going to get you to the
hospital. We’re going to try to make it better.’
” Bereavement: A
Study of Suicide Loss Survivors in
America The experience of suicide loss and bereavement is more prevalent among the US population than most realize. Previous studies demonstrate that suicide loss survivors are likely to experience significant health problems; this new data suggests that large numbers of suicide loss-survivors are in need of mental health services and support. Perhaps the knowledge of how common the experience of suicide survivorship is could help decrease the sense of isolation and stigma many loss survivors experience. Knowing that they are not alone – that their experience of this type of loss is far from rare—could encourage more people who have lost a loved one to suicide to speak more openly about their loss, and connect with others who have also experienced this type of loss. The knowledge about prevalence and impact could also lead to greater sophistication among healthcare providers, clergy and other community members, so that enhanced support for suicide loss could become much more available. To read more about the study, click
here. Suicide exposures
and bereavement among American adults: Evidence from the
2016 General Social Survey
Abstract Background We investigated lifetime suicide exposures and bereavement among a representative sample of American adults from the 2016 General Social Survey. Methods Questions on lifetime suicide exposures, bereavement and mental health status were administered to 1432 respondents. Suicide exposed and bereaved respondents were compared to non-exposed respondents on three different measures of mental health functioning with cross tabulations and means comparison tests. Results 51% of respondents had exposures to one suicide or more during their lifetimes, and 35% were deemed bereaved by suicide, having experienced moderate to severe emotional distress from their losses. Findings suggested more exposures and bereavements were associated with greater numbers of bad mental health days and more expectations of “having nervous breakdowns” but with no clear associations with CES-D scores. Conclusions These findings suggest suicide
exposures and bereavement are far more pervasive than
commonly thought, with more than half of the population
exposed and a third bereaved. Health professionals need to
more actively assess for suicide exposures and bereavements,
and be vigilant for significant impacts of suicide even when
the suicide decedent is not a first degree family relative,
helping to reduce the mental health distress presently
associated with these experiences. A 12-year-old's
suicide attempt killed a grad student who wanted to help
kids with depression Work-Related
Perceptions and Suicide Researchers used data from a nationally representative U.S. sample of 2,855 participants to examine their perceptions of the following work-related characteristics: Motivational work characteristics, including job autonomy (i.e., freedom to make important decisions at work) and task variety (i.e., amount of time spent doing the same thing repeatedly)
The analysis controlled for
demographic characteristics and history of depression and
suicidal behaviors. It found that motivational work
characteristics, work-family and family-work conflict, and
job satisfaction were all directly associated with
depression and suicidal ideation, with an indirect
connection to suicide attempts. Although few employees will
attempt suicide, this research has implications for creating
supportive workplace policies as part of a comprehensive
approach to suicide prevention. Statement for the
American Association of Suicidology Regarding the Role of
Firearms in Suicide and the Importance of Means of Safety in
Preventing Suicide Deaths Although firearms are involved in a disproportionate amount of American suicide deaths, it is vital to note that evidence consistently indicates firearm ownership is not associated with suicidal thoughts. In other words, owning a firearm does not prompt an otherwise non-suicidal individual to suddenly develop thoughts of suicide. Instead, firearms increase the risk of death by suicide. Only a small minority of individuals who think about suicide go on to make a suicide attempt and emerging evidence indicates that, in order for an individual to make that relatively rare transition, he or she must be capable of suicide. Such capability involves, in part, access to and aptitude with lethal means for suicide. Along these lines, it appears that firearms increase the risk for death by suicide among suicidal individuals by facilitating their transition from thought to action, with that action almost universally resulting in death (whereas access to less deadly methods could facilitate a non-lethal suicide attempt). This unique role – a facilitator of action within the context of already existing suicidal thoughts – is highlighted by decades of research demonstrating that firearm access is associated with death by suicide even when accounting for who an individual is (male/female, young/old), how that individual is feeling (depression symptoms, substance use, social isolation), whether that individual has access to proper care (population density, socioeconomic status), and whether that individual has been suicidal in the past (prior suicidal thoughts, prior suicide attempts). Firearm access increases suicide risk among all members of a home where a firearm is present, and risk is greatest when household firearms are stored unlocked and loaded.
Fortunately, lessons learned from other public health struggles, as well as emerging evidence specific to firearms and suicide, present a blueprint for success in addressing this problem. Means safety – defined as actions that render a specific method for suicide less deadly or less accessible during a suicide attempt – represents a promising path towards reducing firearm suicides and, consequently towards lowering the overall suicide rate. This approach is often referred to as “means restriction;” however, research has demonstrated that use of the word “restriction” decreases the willingness of firearm owners to engage with the intervention. Means safety has been applied to a range of suicide methods. For instance, the detoxification of domestic gas resulted in substantial reductions in the overall suicide rate in the UK in the mid-20th century. Reducing access to the most highly human-toxic pesticides in Sri Lanka led to a 50% drop in the overall suicide rate, driven by a drop in poisoning suicides.. When means safety is effective, it reduces the overall suicide rate by reducing the method-specific suicide rate, while suicide rates by other methods either remain flat or only marginally increase. The goal is to prevent individuals from dying, not to simply change the method by which they die. Reductions in overall suicide rates highlight the fact that, when an individual is prevented from using a specific method to die by suicide, they do not simply find another way. The effect of means safety, however, hinges upon the lethality, popularity, and accessibility of the targeted method. As such, means safety efforts in the United States must focus specifically on firearms in order to have optimal effects because firearms are the leading method, the most lethal, and easy to access. Means safety specific to firearms can take several forms, each of which has varying levels of evidence supporting its efficacy as well as varying degrees of plausibility depending in part upon geographic location. In recent years, suicide prevention experts have collaborated with the firearm owning community to develop “gun friendly” materials, messaging, and curriculum aimed at gun-owning families. These interventions do not vilify firearms or firearm owners; they capitalize on the existing culture of gun safety and the shared goal of preventing suicide death. The primary focus of these programs is to encourage voluntarily storing firearms away from the home when a household member is at risk for suicide or otherwise making them inaccessible to the at-risk person. These programs also encourage routinely storing guns locked, not only during times of crisis. Such approaches are akin to successful efforts to curb drunk driving and to reduce the overall motor vehicle fatality rate (e.g. “friends don’t let friends drive drunk”). They are non-coercive and focus on preventing an unwanted outcome rather than demonizing firearms and risking a lack of buy-in from the firearm owning community. The collaborative approach has yielded partnerships with high profile firearm organizations (e.g. National Shooting Sports Foundation), which in turn lends credibility to such projects and increases the plausibility of large scale dissemination and implementation. Research considering the suicide prevention potential of legislation (e.g. universal background checks, mandatory waiting periods; extreme risk protection orders) indicates that states with certain laws in place tend to exhibit lower overall suicide rates and a less severe suicide rate trajectory across time. Given the magnitude of the effect sizes reported in this research, such legislation may represent one useful tool in efforts to prevent suicide. That being said, in areas of the country in which firearm ownership is substantially more common, the political feasibility of such legislation is lower, rendering the potential reach of at least certain forms of the intervention limited.
Research examining the effectiveness of non-legislative means safety approaches is currently lacking and such data should be a focus of suicide research in the coming years. As research is conducted in this area, other potentially fruitful avenues for increasing effectiveness and reach include promoting the use of lethal means counseling; improving locking technologies; and increasing access to and knowledge about safe and legal options to temporarily store firearms during times of crisis. An important consideration is the target population for such interventions. One possible route is to focus on high risk individuals such as those seeking mental health care and/or endorsing suicidal thoughts. Such approaches would focus on ensuring that individuals we have identified as being at high risk for suicide take steps to reduce their access to specific methods for suicide. Although these are certainly valuable
groups to consider, an argument could be made that a better
approach is to aim for population level implementation
regardless of known risk. Recent research indicates that we
have not improved in our ability to prospectively predict
suicide risk since the 1950s. This failure has many
explanations, but one component is likely that the
individuals most likely to die by suicide, particularly
those who would die using a firearm (e.g. men in general,
middle aged or older white men, military personnel) tend to
avoid mental health care altogether and to underreport
thoughts of suicide. Because of this, we are typically ill
equipped to identify individuals at risk for suicide until
they are dead. By implementing means safety at the
population level, we can diminish our reliance upon
correctly identifying individual risk levels and instead
ensure our communities as a whole are at lower risk of
suicide death regardless of current suicidal thoughts. As
such, although we do not oppose approaches that target high
risk individuals, we would see such efforts as needing to be
one component of a multifaceted approach that also includes
population level prevention initiatives. Talking
about Suicide & LGBT Populations In recent years, suicide risk among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people has become a growing focus of public discussion and concern. While some of that visibility has been informed by solid research and facts, other aspects of the discussion have inadvertently contributed to misinformation about suicidal behavior in LGBT populations, potentially increasing the risk of suicide in vulnerable individuals. The importance of public education about suicide cannot be overstated. When individuals and organizations talk about suicide safely and accurately, they can help reduce the likelihood of its occurrence; however, talking about suicide in inaccurate or exaggerated ways can elevate that risk in vulnerable individuals. This second edition of Talking About Suicide & LGBT Populations provides facts about suicide and LGBT people, as well as ways to talk about suicide safely and accurately—and in ways that advance vital public discussions about preventing suicide among LGBT people and supporting their health and well-being. Talking About Suicide & LGBT Populations (August 2017)DOWNLOAD 4 page PDF Conversaciones sobre el suicidio y las poblaciones LGBT En los últimos años, el riesgo de suicidio en personas lesbianas, gays, bisexuales y transgénero (LGBT) ha cobrado mayor atención en el debate y la preocupación del público. Si bien parte de esa visibilidad se basa en hechos e investigaciones sólidas, otros aspectos del debate han contribuido involuntariamente a generar información errónea acerca del comportamiento suicida en las poblaciones LGBT, lo que posiblemente aumenta el riesgo de suicidio en personas vulnerables. No se debe subestimar la importancia de la educación pública en torno al suicidio. Cuando las personas y las organizaciones hablan del suicidio de forma segura y precisa, pueden ayudar a reducir la probabilidad de que ocurra; sin embargo, cuando se cometen exageraciones o inexactitudes al hablar del suicidio, se puede elevar el riesgo en personas vulnerables. Esta segunda edición de Cómo hablar sobre el suicidio y las poblaciones LGBT trata sobre la realidad del suicidio y las personas LGBT. Ofrece maneras de hablar sobre el suicidio con seguridad y precisión, que buscan fomentar el debate público vital sobre su prevención en personas LGBT, y apoyar su salud y bienestar. . Conversaciones sobre el suicidio y las poblaciones LGBT(Agosto de 2017) DOWNLOAD Additional Resources Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide (2011) (American Association of Suicidology; American Foundation for Suicide Prevention; Annenberg Public Policy Center; Canterbury Suicide Project - University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand; Columbia University Department of Psychiatry; ConnectSafely.org; Emotion Technology; International Association for Suicide Prevention Task Force on Media and Suicide; Medical University of Vienna; National Alliance on Mental Illness; National Institute of Mental Health; New York State Psychiatric Institute; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Suicide Awareness Voices of Education; Suicide Prevention Resource Center; The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and UCLA School of Public Health, Community Health Sciences) Suicide and Suicide Risk in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations: Review and Recommendations (Journal of Homosexuality, Volume 58, Issue 1, January 2011) Safe and Effective Messaging for
Suicide Prevention (Suicide Prevention Resource Center)
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