The evaluation of suicide prevention activities: state of the art

One million people commit suicide world-wide every year. The need for suicide prevention is obvious, and very different approaches have been investigated to reduce the number of suicides. Some interventions aim at identified high-risk groups (e.g. support for people after suicide attempt), some at the population as a whole (e.g. restricting the access to means for suicide). There is, however, but little evidence for the efficacy of suicide prevention activities. This can mostly be attributed to methodological problems such as the lack of randomised controlled studies and the fact that the sample size is too small to show an effect. Despite these problems, some interventions showed promising results (e.g. long-term lithium treatment). A main problem, however, is that many people at risk do not get in contact with health care institutions. Moreover, no single approach by itself seems to contribute to a substantial decline in the suicide rate. The authors therefore argue that a combination of different strategies in a multi-level approach might prove to be the most effective.