Elder Suicide: What Senior Care Pharmacists Need to Know

Older individual suicide is a growing community health problem in the United States. It is also preventable, and senior care pharmacists can increase awareness of the prevalence of suicide risk in older patients. Despite high exposure to many serious suicide risk factors and a high rate of suicide mortality, older people tend to be overlooked in suicide prevention efforts that lean mostly toward younger age groups. Senior care pharmacists can help remedy this situation by monitoring reports on older patients for possible signs of suicidality, alerting the care team if signs of potential suicide risk are present, and adding suicide prevention information to their education and counseling roles. An understanding of the nature of older individual suicide, the warning and danger signs of suicidality in older people and how and when to respond is needed. Providing this background would assure that senior care pharmacists have the skills and confidence necessary to embed suicide prevention in their practice.