Health Professionals Confident About Suicide Screening, Less So About Prevention Services

Most health professionals feel confident about screening for suicidality but less confident about performing more complex practices such as risk assessment and safety planning, astudy inPsychiatric Services in Advance has found.Celine Larkin, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and colleagues invited 5,559 clinicians in a large health care system to take a survey on suicide prevention practices and implementation, and only 1,224 responded. They included physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, residents, advanced practice providers, and medical assistants.Participants were asked to rate their confidence in their ability to screen patients for suicidality, assess suicide risk severity, provide brief counseling to suicidal patients, help patients at risk create a personalized safety plan, and find referral resources. They also reported how many suicides they considered preventable; the proportion of all patients they personally screen for suicidal ideation; and the proportion of patients with suicidality whom they personally assess for risk severity, create a written personalized safety plan for, briefly counsel, and provide referrals to outpatient or community resources.Overall, 65% of the participants reported that they were confident that they had the skills needed to screen patients for suicidality. However, fewer reported confidence in performing other suicide-related practices, as follows:Further assessment, 50%Providing referrals or re...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research