Practical management of the suicidal patient

Suicide is nearly always due to untreated depression, causes widespread distress, and is a waste of life years. Eighty percent of suicides are male, mainly in the age range of 25-44 years. Nearly every person who commits suicide has talked about it before the event.

This article focusses on teaching some 'tricks of the trade' used by the author in treating suicidal patients.

General practitioners should ask the patient to indicate on a scale of 0-10, the stresses, emotional suffering and suicidal intensity they are feeling. They should offer understanding, very frequent contact, antidepressants, discussion, guarantees of improvement, and benzodiazepines for relief from pain during the process.