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Mental health
Patient deaths by suicide significantly affect clinicians
  1. Leo Sher
  1. Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Leo Sher, Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA; Leo.Sher{at}mssm.edu

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Commentary on: Croft A, Lascelles K, Brand F, et al. Effects of patient deaths by suicide on clinicians working in mental health: A survey. Int J Ment Health Nurs. 2023 Feb;32(1):245–276. doi: 10.1111/inm.13080. Epub 2022 Oct 26.

Implications for practice and research

  • We need to provide effective psychological care in a compassionate environment to clinicians who are traumatised by a patient’s death by suicide.

  • We need to design and perform research studies to find out what interventions are most helpful for clinicians impacted by a patient’s suicide death.

Context

Suicide is a major medical and social problem around the world.1 According to the WHO, about 800 000 individuals die by suicide every year globally.1 Suicidal individuals usually have psychiatric disorders and are treated by medical professionals working in mental health.2 3 Clinicians working with psychiatric patients are frequently significantly traumatised by a patient’s death …

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Footnotes

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.