[The family physician and the suicidal patient]

As a background for the discussion, a minor literary survey points out the potentiality for intervention and prevention of suicide and suicide attempts in the primary care setting. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss what options this implicates when it comes to improve the family physicians' ability to recognize and to handle suicidal signals from the patient. A summary of the important papers already published by Rutz and his group in Sweden clearly demonstrates the importance of education concerning depressive disorders and other immediate matters. The significance of communicative skills of the doctor in this clinical situation in undoubted but still mostly unexplored and finally this is shortly discussed.