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Predicting and preventing suicide: do we know enough to do either?

Joel Paris1

  • 1Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal. joel.paris@mcgill.ca

Harvard Review of Psychiatry
|September 23, 2006
PubMed
Summary
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Predicting individual suicide completion remains challenging despite identified risk factors. Population-based suicide prevention strategies, like restricting access to lethal means, show more promise than high-risk approaches.

Area of Science:

  • Public Health
  • Psychiatry
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Numerous risk factors are linked to suicide completion in population studies.
  • Accurate prediction of individual suicide risk remains elusive.
  • Suicide completers represent a distinct group from attempters, often not engaging with mental health services.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review the current state of suicide risk prediction and prevention strategies.
  • To evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches to suicide prevention.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing population studies on suicide risk factors.
  • Analysis of research findings on suicide prevention interventions.
  • Evaluation of evidence for different prevention strategies.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • While risk factors are identified, individual prediction of suicide completion is not currently feasible.
  • Suicide prevention research has shown some promise but lacks definitive results from interventions.
  • Reducing access to lethal means is the most strongly evidenced prevention strategy.
  • Population-based strategies may be more effective than high-risk individual approaches.

Conclusions:

  • Effective suicide prevention programs require further research.
  • Population-level interventions, particularly restricting access to means, are crucial.
  • Current methods cannot reliably predict individual suicide completion.