Good review!

The article on adolescent suicide prevention published in the August 2010 issue of the journal1 is a very thorough review with excellent resources and links. I found one of the most helpful points was assessing a patient’s level of intent. I often find teenage patients to be ambivalent about their intent. Rating intent on a scale of 1 to 10 can help quantify and assess these patients’ degree of risk.

I also appreciated the hint about asking whether the teen believes that suicide is an acceptable option. However, I am not sure whether a teen saying that suicide is not acceptable would change my opinion of whether a teen was at imminent risk.

I appreciate the resources you included. It would be interesting to know whether these “help lines” actually reduce the number of completed suicides. My understanding is that help lines might field many calls, but the number of completed suicides before and after implementation do not change.

A worthwhile read!

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