What would cardiology do? Lessons from other medical specialties should help guide suicide prevention research

Suicide is among the most important causes of mortality in medicine as it is the most common cause of death due to illness from the teenage years into middle age. Yet our approach to mental health research aimed at suicide prevention has often diverged from accepted practices in other areas of medicine. This includes the exclusion of those at highest risk of suicide from clinical trials and the recent emphasis on prediction. In this Viewpoint, we propose that comparing our approach to that of other medical specialties would help us to avoid strategic errors and discuss the implications for the field of suicide prevention.