Doctors Could Play a Part in Preventing Suicides

Sept. 4 -- WEDNESDAY, Sept. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Physicians could dramatically reduce the number of suicides by restricting at-risk patients' access to guns and other highly lethal ways of killing themselves, say Harvard School of Public Health researchers.

"The temporary nature and fleeting sway of many suicidal crises is evident by the fact that more than 90 percent of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide. A suicide attempt with a firearm rarely affords a second chance," the researchers said in an article in the Sept. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Among Americans, guns are used in more than half of all completed suicides. Studies estimate that one-third to four-fifths of all suicide attempts are impulsive, with 24 percent of victims taking less than five minutes between the decision to kill themselves and the actual attempt, while 70 percent take less than one hour.

Suicide attempts that involve drugs or cutting account for more than 90 percent of all suicidal acts but are fatal far less often than attempts involving guns.

A Harvard Injury Control Research Center Web site provides guidance for physicians on how to assess and restrict an at-risk patient's access to lethal means, including advice on how to approach family members about the possible presence of a gun in the home and how to suggest to family members that guns be moved out of the house temporarily, or locked and stored more securely.

The Harvard team noted that suicidal crises are often caused by an immediate stressor, such as the loss of a job, the breakup of a romantic relationship, or a run-in with police. By intervening to get guns out of patients' reach during these critical times, physicians can help prevent many suicides.

"The suicide prevention field is where the motor vehicle safety movement was 50 years ago and the patient safety movement 20 years ago: The focus of prevention is almost exclusively on the individual," said study author Matthew Miller, associate director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. "Psychiatrists, psychologists and other medical professionals tend naturally to focus on the mental health of the individual patient, one patient at a time."