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Mental health
Effective and multilevel suicide prevention strategies must be developed based on high-quality evidence and public health policy reform
  1. Akhtar Ebrahimi Ghassemi1,
  2. Parastou Azadeh Ranjbar2
  1. 1 Department of Nursing, Hartwick College, Oneonta, New York, USA
  2. 2 College of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Akhtar Ebrahimi Ghassemi, Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY 13820, USA; ghassemia{at}hartwick.edu

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Commentary on: D'Anci KE, Uhl S, Giradi G, et al. Treatments for the prevention and management of suicide: a systematic review. Annal Int Med 2019;171:334–42.

Implications for practice and research

  • Findings indicated a relatively higher strength of evidence for using cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behaviour therapy in reducing suicidal ideations, with CBT portraying an additional benefit in decreasing attempts.

  • High-quality research regarding potential harms of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments in suicide prevention is essential to improve treatment guidelines.

Context

Suicide is a major public health concern. Almost 900 000 lives are lost yearly through suicide worldwide, comprising 1.5% of global burden of the disease.1 The absence of firm standards regarding the quality of evidence and heterogeneity of outcome measures limits the conclusions about the current effectiveness of suicide prevention strategies. D’Anci and colleagues conducted a systematic review to examine the evidence on assessing the …

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Footnotes

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.