[Suizide prevention in Italy and Germany: An overview]

Suicide prevention is highly relevant both individually and socially. In this study, the psychiatric care models in Italy and Germanyin suicide prevention are compared as part of a literature analysis. Suicide rates are significantly lower in Italy than in Germany. This could be due to different historical and, cultural and possibly also climatic characteristics, but in Italy, following the Basaglia reform, social inclusion, community-based care and respect for individual rights play a particularly important role. This care model also shows that open, almost coercion-free psychiatry may be more successful with regard to the important outcome factor of suicide. Italy, on the other hand, can learn from the central, more pronounced coordination of suicide prevention programs, but also from the dense medical care network in Germany with rapid, above all psychopharmacological as well as psychotherapeutical intervention options. The integration of both approaches would probably be most successful.