Suicide postvention

UNLABELLED: Introduction Suicide is among the leading causes of death and nurses care for survivors of suicide at many points in their grief journey. Every individual who dies by suicide leaves behind multiple affected survivors and how they are cared for immediately following the suicide influences how they cope with the death. The purpose of this article is to make recommendations for the care of survivors of suicide loss in the emergency department. METHODS: A narrative review of the current literature was conducted using the databases CINAHL and ProQuest...

Background Suicide is a serious and growing health inequity for Alaska Native (AN) youth (ages 15-24), who experience suicide rates significantly higher than the general U.S. youth population. In low-resourced, remote communities, building on the local and cultural resources found in remote AN communities to increase uptake of prevention behaviors like lethal means reduction, interpersonal support, and postvention can be more effective at preventing suicide than a risk-referral process. This study expands the variables we hypothesize as important for reducing suicide risk and supporting wellbeing...

University chaplains are often unrecognised as resources in suicide prevention. This exploratory article highlights the valuable contributions university chaplains at one Australian university make to suicide prevention. Three overarching themes related to the contributions of university chaplains to suicide prevention were generated: (1) person-centred care; (2) the role of university chaplains in suicide prevention; and (3) professional development. Of particular note is that university chaplains actively contribute to all three phases of the suicide prevention framework: prevention, intervention, and postvention...

BACKGROUND: Suicide rates for children and adolescents have been increasing over the past 2 decades. In April 2023, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) convened a two-day workshop to address child and youth suicide. PURPOSE: The workshop focus was to discuss the state of the science and stimulate a collaborative response between researchers, death investigators, and data collection teams to build a science to service and service to science approach toward understanding - and ultimately preventing - this growing problem of child and youth suicide...

The purpose of this systematic review and thematic synthesis was to identify and consolidate research on the support needs of impacted Higher Education (HE) counselors that have experienced a student suicide death. When exposed to a student suicide death, counselors are often extensively involved in a postvention response. This systematic review synthesized four qualitative papers that explored the experiences of staff impacted by student suicide. Thematic synthesis revealed three core themes: The unknown, responding, and the known, and six subthemes: Gaps in knowledge of individual experience, gaps in knowledge of organizational impact, extrospective responding, introspective responding, the needs of impacted counselors, the degree of impact, and the support processes that arise from needs...

Suicide is a critical public health issue in the United States, recognized as the tenth leading cause of death across all age groups (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Despite the Islamic prohibition on suicide, suicidal ideation and suicide mortality persist among Muslim populations. Recent data suggest that U.S. Muslim adults are particularly vulnerable, with a higher attempt history compared to respondents from other faith traditions. While the underlying reasons for this vulnerability are unclear, it is evident that culturally and religiously congruent mental health services can be utilized to steer suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention in Muslim communities across the United States...

OBJECTIVE: Those bereaved by suicide are at greater risk of prolonged distress compared to those bereaved by other modes of death. Trauma- and emotion-related factors may increase this vulnerability. Finding the body of the deceased may intensify postsuicide distress. Anxiety sensitivity, fear of one's anxiety-related symptoms, has been positively associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in other trauma populations but has not been studied in the suicide bereaved. METHOD: This study examined the relationships among finding the body, anxiety sensitivity, and PTSD in a treatment-seeking, suicide-bereaved sample ( N = 50)...

Although exposure to the suicide death of a military colleague has been shown quantitatively to increase suicide risk factors among veterans, there are very few studies where veterans have been asked about this experience. This article presents a qualitative analysis of 38 interviews with U.S. veterans with exposure to the suicide death of a military colleague in past war operations. Participants described the impact of exposure in relation to the military context and official response to the death, which had long-term ramifications...

Suicide is a leading cause of death. NHS workers, especially female nurses, have heightened vulnerability. Being impacted by a colleague's suicide can lead to increased suicidality. Postvention refers to support following a suicide. We investigated current, available postvention for NHS workers following a colleague's suicide and the experiences of staff who deliver it ("supporters"). Twenty-two supporters were interviewed, and data were analyzed using classic grounded theory. The theory of negotiating postvention situations was developed...

Death of patients by suicide can have powerful impacts on mental health professionals (MHPs). The National Program for the Prevention of Suicidality and Suicide at Israel's Ministry of Health decided to invest in MHPs who have lost patients by suicide. Two hundred and two MHPs completed an online self-report survey regarding their emotional response, professional identity, and clinical practice, and the aid they felt would be supportive following a patient's suicide. Results indicated that 35% of MHP experienced at least one death of a patient by suicide...

BACKGROUND: Around 700,000 people die by suicide each year. While the global number of suicides declined over the last decade, the rates remained unchanged in the Netherlands. With this study, we aimed to provide guiding principles for the implementation of a national standardized psychological autopsy to better understand and prevent suicide, by exploring stakeholder perceptions and needs, and barriers to implementation. METHODS: We interviewed 47 representative stakeholders from various fields (e...

BACKGROUND:  Losing a patient by suicide may lead to psychological distress and mid/long-term personal and professional consequences for psychiatrists, becoming second victims. MATERIAL AND METHODS:  The validated Spanish version of the Second Victim Experience and Support Tool (SVEST-E) questionnaire and a 30-item questionnaire created ad-hoc was administered online to psychiatrists from all over Spain to evaluate how patient suicide affects mental health professionals...

Suicide among American Muslims is understudied, despite recent research  highlighting increased suicide attempts among this population. While suicide is forbidden in Islam, formal guidelines for addressing and responding to suicide within Muslim communities did not exist until recently. The Stanford Muslim Mental Health and Islamic Psychology Lab has responded to a number of suicides in Muslim communities across North America and implemented an original model for suicide response and community healing...

Suicide substantially impacts disaster-affected communities due to pre-existing psychosocial effects caused by the disaster. Following the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, local disaster aid workers had overworked for months, and many workers eventually died by suicide. Although many workplaces suffered this dual damage, there is limited literature on psychosocial postvention in this context. This study reports the activities of individual/group postventions provided to these aid workers. The bereaved person expressed grief for the loss of their colleagues and anger for not being protected...

Given the high prevalence rate of suicidal ideation amongst medical students, medical lecturers and specialists as gatekeepers should be well-trained in suicide prevention. There is a need for validated measures to assess gatekeeper training gains for suicide prevention. The psychometric properties of the Advanced C.A.R.E. Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training Questionnaire (AdCARE-Q) were evaluated for a sample of medical lecturers and specialists in Malaysia. A total of 120 participants completed 24 items in the AdCARE-Q...

INTRODUCTION: Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the 15 to 29 age group worldwide, and is a severe public health problem. Adolescent and young adult individuals attend educational institutions which can play an essential role in detecting and preventing suicide. For this reason, the purpose of this research is to identify what educational institutions and agents are called into action in suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. METHODS: The method of systematic review of the literature based on the PRISMA protocol was used...

There is a collective call from the field of suicide research for studies on the individual dynamics of suicidality in order to understand the deadliness of the suicidal process. This study examines the deceased next of kin's ('survivor's) experience of the suicidal process in order to gain perspectives that can be used in the preventive care of suicidal patients. The aim of this study was to explore the suicide process through the suicide survivor's experience. The study is designed and conducted through a phenomenological, reflective lifeworld approach...

By the time they leave high school, 17% of adolescents will have experienced the suicide death of a friend, peer, or classmate. While some will be unaffected or experience a brief period of distress following the death, for others the death will cause significant disruption and distress, even increasing their risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. It is essential for social workers to be able to support at-risk adolescents after this type of loss. To do this, it is critical to understand the ways that adolescents experience the death, grieve, and recover from the loss...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between mental health workforce supply and spatial clusters of high versus low incidence of youth suicide. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of spatial suicide clusters in young Australians (aged 10-25) from 2016 to 2020 was conducted using the scan statistic and suicide data from the National Coronial Information System. Mental health workforce was extracted from the 2020 National Health Workforce Dataset by local government areas...

We examined social mechanisms of suicide support groups based on evidence from an Italian postvention program. Our data comprise field notes from 47 meetings of a peer group and interviews with 20 suicide survivors. Group meetings unfolded as interaction rituals with elements including the survivors' focus on their trauma, their common emotions, and their perception of boundaries to outsiders. Meanings relative to these elements were expressed by participants according to three types of representations, termed diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing...