Psychiatrists offer advice on how to reduce suicides

WHILE not enough research on the factors preventing suicide were being conducted, there were areas that could be improved with the goal of reducing suicides and attempted suicides, according to Professor Brian Mishara, Principal Investigator of the Mental Health Commission of Canada yesterday.

Mishara was among three speakers who presented their findings at a workshop on suicide prevention at the Hilton’s La Boucan room.

He said while we had sufficient research on why people chose to end their own lives, not enough information was available on why people in seemingly hopeless situations do not choose suicide as a way out. “We know how to make someone suicidal, we’ve learned that from all our studies on risk factors, but we have much less research on why people who are in horrible situations don’t go ahead and attempt suicide, we have very little research on defective factors so I think we need to stop and examine our efforts and reassess our efforts on how to achieve zero suicides.”

Mishara said among the conditions necessary for creating a zero suicide society would be to reduce social inequity and providing coping mechanisms for children who may feel stressed or overwhelmed with domestic issues. In order to keep pace with rapidly changing technologies, Mishara also recommended that there suicide prevention centres utilise text messaging and online chats to reach out to those at risk. Citing one such centre in Morocco, he said there has been some success in reaching out to distressed people.

Also speaking at the workshop was Professor Ella Arensman of the National Suicide Research Foundation in Ireland, said the threat of suicide contagion where people mimic or imitate the actions of other suicides was well-recorded over history and said countries like New Zealand and Australia have already taken steps to prevent such trends by changing the way suicides are reported in the media.