Precision Medicine and Suicide: an Opportunity for Digital Health

A better understanding of suicide phenomena is needed, and precision medicine is a promising approach toward this aim. In this manuscript, we review recent advances in the field, with particular focus on the role of digital health.

Technological advances such as smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment and passive collection of information from sensors provide a detailed description of suicidal behavior and thoughts. Further, we review more traditional approaches in the field of genetics. We first highlight the need for precision medicine in suicidology. Then, in light of recent and promising research, we examine the role of smartphone-based information collection using explicit (active) and implicit (passive) means to construct a digital phenotype, which should be integrated with genetic and epigenetic data to develop tailored therapeutic and preventive approaches for suicide.