Triaging suicidal patients: Sifting through the evidence

Suicide Prevention Strategies for General Hospital and Psychiatric Inpatients: A Narrative Review

BACKGROUND

In-patient (IP) suicides contribute a small but significant proportion of overall suicides. Despite this, suicide prevention strategies focusing on the general hospital IP population remain relatively underresearched. This paper is intended to provide an overview of various proposed suicide prevention approaches in the general hospital, including psychiatric IP, settings, and their evidence base.

METHODOLOGY

Electronic searches of MEDLINE through PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar databases were performed to identify potentially relevant articles from inception till January 2019. The generated abstracts were systematically screened for their eligibility to be included in the review. Included articles were grouped under five broad themes: environmental modification, staff education, pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and brain stimulation. Data extraction was done using a structured proforma.

RESULTS

Environmental modifications and educating the health care professionals appear to be the most promising strategies to reduce suicide-related mortality among IPs. Among pharmacological methods, ketamine has shown initial promise in reducing suicidal ideations. Follow-up data are lacking for most of the described methods. Limited but positive evidence exists for cognitive therapies focusing on the immediate postadmission period and brain stimulation techniques, and it warrants further replication.

CONCLUSION

There is a striking paucity of original research on IP suicide prevention. Given the ethical and methodological issues in carrying out studies with IP suicide as the primary outcome, there is a need to focus on intermediate suicide outcome measures, such as knowledge, attitude, and skills among staff handlers of suicidal patients.

Suicide risk assessment in Australian emergency departments: assessing clinicians' disposition decisions

Objective. To determine (1) the uniformity of disposition decisions made by clinicians working in Australian emergency departments (EDs) using vignettes describing patients presenting with deliberate self-harm or suicide risk; (2) factors associated with these decisions; (3) factors associated with confidence in these decisions. Methodology. We validated and distributed by email an online survey tool to Australian emergency clinicians via their colleges. Participants were presented with five vignettes and asked to rate the level of risk and protective factors for suicide, the patient's disposition (admit/discharge/review), factors influencing this decision, their confidence in the decision, and factors that would have improved their confidence. Results. Percentages of participants choosing the modal disposition decision for each scenario ranged from 58.6% (136/232) to 92.4% (220/238), demonstrating uniformity in clinicians' disposition decisions. Predictors of disposition were consistently level of risk factors perceived and, infrequently, clinician factors including age and years experience. Confidence in disposition decisions was high across scenarios. Clinicians reported patient, clinician, contextual and decision support factors relevant to an Australian emergency context affected their disposition decisions and confidence in decisions. Conclusion. Emergency clinicians are uniform and confident in their disposition decisions for patient vignettes where there is risk of suicide or self harm.

Suicide assessment by psychiatric nurses: a phenomenographic study

Although suicide assessment has been researched, nurses haven't been included in studies nor has this been explored from a phenomenographic perspective. Suicide assessment by nurses was investigated using a phenomenographic design. Data were collected through observations, vignettes, and interviews. Phenomenographic analysis discovered four qualitative differences in suicide assessment among nurse participants: reliance on (1) examples of other suicide cases, (2) intuition, (3) others' assessments, and (4) prior experience. The categories were classified into a three dimensional theoretical structure of suicide assessment: (a) Knowledge, (b) Method, and (c) Reference. Variability in participants' assessments established a structure of suicide assessment that furthers understanding of how nurses assess suicide and provides implications for practice.