Suicide Prevention

SUICIDE PREVENTION

Suicide Prevention: A study of mental health services that provide help in suicide
prevention

October 30, 2010

Suicide Prevention

1. INTRODUCTION
Suicide prevention and mental health centres offer very valuable services in helping
potential suicidal patients to overcome the intense depression, remorse and guilt feelings that
makes the patients take this extreme step (Silverman, 2007). There are a number of psychiatrists
and expert counsellors who would treat mental disorders to aid in suicide prevention. However,
an effective method are suicide prevention centres and help lines and these are help centres that
offer selective intervention care that work through two methods for suicide prevention. The first
method is the prevention of mental disorders and the second is the prevention of suicide (Lester,
2007). This paper reviews the issue of suicides and examines suicide prevention centre in
London and discusses the services provided by the centre and why the services need
improvement. The paper would also compare this centre with another one and examine the
statistics and other features.

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE SUICIDE ISSUE

Bertolote (2004) notes that the malaise of suicide is seen from two perspectives. One
perspective is about patients with mental disorders and those with painful and serious illness who
take this extreme step and these are biological and psychological factors. There is also a second
perspective, the social, existential and economic factors where intelligent and sane people,
working successful professionals who on an impulse and often under substance abuse effects,
may take this extreme step (Durlak, 2007). According to NHS (2010) suicide prevention
techniques and methods need to be polarised, substantially divergent and different for both these
causal factors. A mentally challenged person can be stopped from the suicide act by placing the
patient under restraint and by removing access to such means that can aid in suicide. Mann(2005)

Suicide Prevention

says that prevention of suicide for professionals, teens and the elderly who are seemingly sane
would require the services of a suicide prevention counsellor. Angst (2009) is of the opinion that
people who attempt suicide are invariably suffering from some temporary mental disorder. Some
of the possible disorders are depression, stress, Schizophrenia, depression, unemployment,
divorce, separation, loss of a loved one and so on. Motto (2001) says that many people get over
these problems and forget them but for some, these issues become so unbearable that they play
them again and again in their heads that they feel like killing themselves.
According to statistics from (Mind, 2010), more than 4300 people commit suicide in UK
every year. When people do not succeed in their first attempt, there should be very strong
counselling and advice to prevent another attempt since 5% of people succeed the second time
after having failed the first time. Samaritans (2010) notes that suicide prevention centres offer a
means for potential suicide attempters to speak to someone who can understand their problems
and who will sympathise with them and not treat them with disdain. This is an important aspect
for suicide prevention helpline centres.

3. DISCUSSION OF ABC SUICIDE PREVENTION CENTRE

In this section, a brief discussion of a London based ABC Suicide Prevention Centre is
given in this section. ABC Suicide Prevention is a telephone helpline and has its head quarters in
London and it offers advice to callers throughout UK. The organisation has a number of fully
trained volunteers who have come from different backgrounds and professions. The volunteers
are selected only after they pass a strict selection process and after they complete an accredited
training programme that is endorsed by a UK psychiatrists body. In addition, the volunteers are
also supported by and supervised by professionals who are paid for their work. Thus there is a

Suicide Prevention

combination of trained volunteers and professional healthcare professionals. In the past year for
2008-2009, ABC claims to have handled 16000 calls on a national basis and these calls related to
depression prone patients, people under tremendous stress and some who wanted to end their
lives. The firm has not followed up on any patients who were talked to, in an attempt to
understand the progress made or the efficacy of their help line.

3.1. Why the organisations needs to be improved

On closer observations, some improvements are needed in the manner that ABC operates.
The organisation does not offer face to face help but only through telephone lines. Patients in
distress have to call up dedicated numbers on chargeable basis and a toll free number is not
provided. Patients can talk about their problems and the volunteers will try to find local services
who can offer personal counselling. ABC does not provide advice or tells the caller about what
they should do and they also cannot make a diagnosis or provide any emergency and urgent care.
While it does not give counselling, it allows the callers to talk about their problems, without any
fear or prejudice. These observations indicate that ABC has to improve because when a caller is
in distress and on the verge of suicide, he should not be put on hold or asked to pay for the
telephone call. ABC also must improve since it does not give any counselling and advice.

4. COMPARISON OF ABC WITH XYZ SUICIDE PREVENTION CENTRE

In the previous section, a brief description has been given about ABC. In this section a
comparison with XYZ Suicide Prevention Centre is given. XYZ offers face to face counselling in
addition to support through email and telephone to callers in major towns and cities of UK. It has
also set up discreet kiosks in places such as schools, prisons, work areas and in busy central

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office districts. The facility has on hand expert doctors and healthcare specialists in addition to
volunteers. These people help the caller or the visitor, provide counselling and intervention care
and offer help and guidance on a 24x7 basis. The centre has a database with patient histories and
regular call back and monitoring is done to judge the efficacy of their treatment. In 2008-2009,
the organisation has handled about 23000 email queries, calls and visits and it has reported that
about 96% of the cases have shown a marked improvement.

5. CONCLUSION
The paper has discussed suicide prevention mental healthcare systems and helpline
systems. Suicide prevention through helpline and call centres are meant to provide counselling to
patients who suffer from social, existential and economic factors. Such factors include
depression, unemployment, other psychiatric disorder and such patients can be helped with
counselling while those suffering from mental illness and painful illness can only be restrained
from ending their lives. The paper also examined a London suicide prevention centre and
examined the services offered and why the centre should improve. The paper also examined
another centre that offered better and enhanced services.

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REFERENCES
Angst, J., 2009. Suicide risk in patients with major depressive disorder. Journal of Clinical
Psychiatry, 60(2), pp: 5762
Bertolote, J., October 2004. Suicide prevention: at what level does it work? World Psychiatry,
3(3), pp. 147-151
Durlak, J.A., 2007. Primary prevention mental health programs: the future is exciting. American
Journal of Communication Psychology, 25, pp :233243
Lester, D., 2007. The effectiveness of suicide prevention centres: a review. Suicide Life Threat
Behaviour, 27, pp. 304-310
Mann, J, A., 26 October 2005. Suicide Prevention Strategies. Journal of American Medical
Association, 294(16), pp. 1515-1519
Mind, 2010. Statistics 2: Suicide. [Online] Mind. Available at
http://www.mind.org.uk/help/research_and_policy/statistics_2_suicide [Accessed 30
October 2010]
Motto, J, A., 2001. A Randomized Controlled Trial of Post crisis Suicide Prevention. Psychiatric
Services, 52, pp, 828-833
NHS, 2010. Suicide prevention [Online] NHS. Available at
http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/suicide/Pages/Suicidehome.aspx [Accessed 29 October 2010]
Samaritans, 2010. Do you recognise some of these in yourself? Or in a friend? [Online]
Samaritans. Available at
http://www.samaritans.org/your_emotional_health/feeling_low.aspx [Accessed 29
October 2010]

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Silverman, M. M., 2007. The big ten student suicide study: a 10-year study of suicides on
Midwestern university campuses. Suicide Life Threat Behaviour, 27, pp. 285303