Experts recruit primary care doctors for suicide prevention push

By Staff Writer

Experts who study the causes of suicide often focus on victims’ mental health and assume that physical health has little connection to the problem.

However, new research shows that 45 percent of the 32,000 Americans who take their own lives each year visit their primary care provider within a month of their death.

The challenge for public health experts is that the patients may not be depressed teens talking openly about hurting themselves, but can be much harder to identify.

Now a group of physicians, nurses, social workers and researchers is looking for a way to use those statistics to help prevent suicide. The health experts gathered in Portland, Oregon this April for a Call to Action on Suicide Prevention in Primary Care Practice.

Their goal was to find methods that could empower primary health care providers to screen their patients, identify those with a high risk of suicide, and take action to address the risk.

One step could include setting up a national network to remind health care providers that the most basic mental health assessments occur in primary care settings, because practitioners have hands-on contact with patients.

The network could also provide physicians, nurses and social workers with better ways to recognize their patients' suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The health professionals could then incorporate suicide prevention activities into their broader primary care practices.