Public involvement in suicide prevention: understanding and strengthening lay responses to distress

公众参与自杀预防：了解并加强非专业人士对痛苦的反应

• 批准号: G0600296/1
• 负责人: Christabel Owens
• 金额: $ 35.7万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G0600296%2F1
• 关键词: Public; involvement; suicide; prevention; understanding

Suicide prevention is everybody?s business. Previous research has concentrated heavily on the contribution that doctors and health professionals can make, due to the fact that those who take their own lives are usually suffering from a treatable mental disorder. Attention has also focused on government initiatives to make methods of suicide less accessible, for example by reducing the pack sizes of paracetamol and other commonly used drugs. These measures are helpful, but we also need to be looking at the contribution that ordinary people can make. Relatives, friends and colleagues are usually the first to know when someone is deeply troubled or distressed. They may think it is ?perfectly normal in the circumstances? (after a relationship breakdown, for instance) and assume that the person will get over it in time. Most of us do eventually recover from setbacks, but some do not. Relatives and friends need to make judgements about the seriousness of the distress, about how to respond to it and about whether to seek professional help. These are difficult and complex decisions, and we know very little about how people make them and how they can be better equipped to do so. By studying in detail the circumstances surrounding particular suicides and asking relatives and friends about the way in which they understood what was going on, we hope to illuminate this neglected area. We will study 30 cases of suicide, in each case interviewing 3-4 people in order to build up a balanced picture. We will interview the deceased?s doctor, as well as family and friends, to try to identify ways in which lay people and professionals can work together to support a suicidal individual.We aim to discover: who was in contact with the deceased; how aware they were of his/her distress and how they interpreted it; what actions they took, and what additional knowledge, skills and support might have enabled them to manage the situation differently and possibly prevent a fatal outcome. The findings will give us a better understanding of the role that families, friends and others can play in identifying and supporting suicidal individuals, and will enable us to develop initiatives to promote public mental health awareness. The team consists of researchers at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter and at the Universities of Bristol and Swansea, together with a representative of PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide).

自杀预防是每个人？年代的业务。以前的研究主要集中在医生和卫生专业人员可以做出的贡献上，因为那些自杀的人通常患有可治疗的精神障碍。人们的注意力还集中在政府减少自杀方法的举措上，例如减少扑热息痛和其他常用药物的包装大小。这些措施是有帮助的，但我们也需要看到普通人可以做出的贡献。亲戚、朋友和同事通常是第一个知道某人陷入深深的困扰或痛苦的人。他们可能会这么认为？在这种情况下完全正常吗？（例如，在一段关系破裂后）并假设这个人会及时克服它。我们大多数人最终都能从挫折中恢复过来，但有些人却不能。亲戚和朋友需要对痛苦的严重性、如何应对以及是否寻求专业帮助做出判断。这些都是困难而复杂的决定，我们对人们如何做出这些决定以及如何更好地做好这些决定知之甚少。通过详细研究特定自杀事件的环境，并询问亲属和朋友他们是如何理解发生了什么，我们希望阐明这个被忽视的领域。我们将研究30个自杀案例，在每个案例中采访3-4个人，以建立一个平衡的画面。我们会采访死者吗？他向美国的医生、家人和朋友寻求帮助，试图找出非专业人士和专业人士可以共同努力支持自杀者的方法。我们的目标是发现：谁与死者有过接触；他们如何意识到他/她的痛苦，他们如何解释它；他们采取了哪些行动，哪些额外的知识、技能和支持可能使他们能够以不同的方式处理情况，并可能防止致命的结果。这些发现将使我们更好地了解家庭、朋友和其他人在识别和支持自杀个人方面可以发挥的作用，并将使我们能够制定倡议，以提高公众的心理健康意识。该小组由埃克塞特半岛医学院、布里斯托尔大学和斯旺西大学的研究人员以及PAPYRUS（预防青少年自杀）的一名代表组成。