The article chosen is called, Suicide Intervention in Primary Care: A Selective Review of the Evidence. This article was meant to inform the reader how Primary Care Intervention can be used to reduce the risk of suicide attempts. The article is of such interest since it addresses a common psychological problem that has affected the society for a long time. For instance each year, more than thirty thousand Americans die from suicide (Dueweke, & Bridges 2018). The suicidal rates have increased significantly over the last twenty years. Both major stress issues and depressive disorders have increased the risks of attempts and completed suicides. Therefore, such an article is essential since there is a critical need to develop suicide risks intervention through the establishment of Primary Care Provision facilities.
Previous researches on suicide intervention emphasize the essentiality of primary care in curbing the rate of suicide in the US. For instance, a study conducted in New York health centers indicated that there is a need to integrate health and primary care. The research found that there enormous possibility to prevent the rate of suicide attempts when the victims are connected to specialty care through collaboration between primary and behavioral healthcare providers. Other significant studies address the need to understand the risk factors associated with the attempt of suicide (Heinzen, & Goodfriend 2017). This is a case of differentiating between risk factors and warning signs that could lead to suicide. Different studies have identified warning signs as specific acute or sub-acute behaviors such as insomnia, hopelessness and psychomotor agitation. These warnings are associated with social psychological factors, and therefore there is a need to conduct the study proposed by this article to promote essential intervention for suicides.
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The article presents the participants of the study drawn from all aspects of life, but there were some specific cases. Most of the participants were adults and elderly especially those who have participated in military service. There are also youths included in the research. All ethnics groups were presented in the study (Dueweke, & Bridges 2018). The research conducted in this article was primarily voluntarily, and therefore there was no compensation for participation.
The article study specialized in research methodologies such as group and individual interviews in the four packages of interventions that were established and tested for suitability to manage suicide risks in primary care.
The results of the article’s study consisted of four factors of suicide practice management in primary care. Practitioner education was identified as the most significant factor in the study. These components included strategies for giving healthcare providers knowledge to enable them to handle suicide cases with diligence. This method was cited to have been successful in England where more than 350 health professionals were trained in a period of six months. However, the study found that this component had not been able to instill knowledge and capability of healthcare providers to remove hopelessness in suicide patients. Screening for suicide risk and mood disturbance was also established as an essential factor since it facilitated inclusivity and suicide risk detection by primary care providers (Dueweke, & Bridges 2018). Though this component was essential, it was identified that it could be only effective in an environment where treatment support options were available. Managing depression symptoms was also found effective in preventing suicide for the elderly.
The authors of this article argue that the collaborative approach of treatment could be the best option for reducing suicidal ideation in primary care especially for cases related to depression. But controversy arises because not all suicide cases result from depression. They also cite other approaches which are suitable for only a specific group of patients such as inpatient and outpatient treatment (Dueweke, & Bridges 2018). Therefore, the authors suggest that a more comprehensive approach in curbing suicidal cases caused by different aspects is required such as incorporating mental healthcare providers in primary care. The authors conclude that suicide risks need to be addressed by PCPs through coordinated efforts to deter occurrence and treat suicidal patients effectively.
Theories covered include cognitive dissonance, self-verification, and observation learning theory. Cognitive dissonance theory relates to how people change their behavior when they do things that violate their view of themselves. This theory is relevant to this article since such change in behavior can lead to depression and stress which results to self-hurt through suicide. Observation learning theory is essential for primary care providers who require observation techniques for suicide intervention (Heinzen, & Goodfriend 2017). The self-verification approach involves a desire to be understood by others. For effective suicide intervention, healthcare providers must be well understood by their patients to curb suicide behavior.
The approaches for suicide intervention used in this article such as training healthcare providers, prevention of suicide in primary care elderly and Pennsylvania youth suicide prevention, can be applied in healthcare centers, mental health stations and counseling facilities to reduce the rapidly increasing suicide ideation and attempts in the US and other parts of the world (Dueweke, & Bridges 2018). The findings of this article could also be essential in efficient training of primary care providers.
One significant component of suicide risk management in primary care that could have been included in the article is follow-up and to monitor aspect. This is an essential factor that would enable primary care providers to offer support to the patient after discharge who are identified as being at risk of suicide (Brodsky, Spruch-Feiner, & Stanley 2018). A study showed that the brief intervention contact after discharge was associated with a reduced number of suicide deaths in a period of up to 18 months.
References
Brodsky, B. S., Spruch-Feiner, A., & Stanley, B. (2018). The Zero Suicide Model: Applying evidence-based suicide prevention practices to clinical care. Frontiers in psychiatry, 9, 33.
Dueweke, A. R., & Bridges, A. J. (2018). Suicide interventions in primary care: A selective review of the evidence. Families, Systems, & Health, 36(3), 289.
Heinzen, T., & Goodfriend, W. (2017). Social Psychology. SAGE Publications.
Heinzen, T., & Goodfriend, W. (2019). Social psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
