I think you're asking the wrong question---it may be about why you're not locating the sources. There is extensive interest, including the journal Crisis:The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, at the website https://us.hogrefe.com/products/zeitschriften/crisis/

I don't know the situation in Ireland, but a Google search for suicide prevention will turn up dozens of English-language examples. 

A few interesting publications that might be relevant, from PsycLit search for bibliography on suicide prevention:

Review-Book

A case against coercive suicide prevention.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027274

By Rogers, James R.

PsycCRITIQUES, Vol 57(13), 2012, No Pagination Specified.

Reviews the book, Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine by Thomas Szasz (see record 2011-24775-000). There is no clearer mandate in the mental health fields than with regard to the prevention of suicide. With worldwide estimates of about one million suicides a year (World Health Organization, 2011) and over 36,000 deaths by suicide in the United States in 2008 alone (American Association of Suicidology, 2011), the prevention of suicide has become a global and national priority. However, in this book, his latest contribution to the literature in psychiatry and by extension the mental health field in general, Thomas Szasz provides a counterargument to the received mandate to prevent suicide. In this relatively brief text of 111 pages minus notes and bibliography, Szasz organizes his argument into six chapters and concludes with excerpts from David Hume’s On Suicide essay published in 1777 as an Appendix. Setting the stage in support of his thesis, he provides a brief overview of the historical development of suicide, including variously identifying suicide as a crime against the state, a sin against God, an existential consideration, and today as “a transformation of self-killing from a deliberate act into the unintended consequence of a disease (of the brain)” (p. 10), that is, mental illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

A masterful piece of work and a “must read”.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910.30.3.166

By Buda, Béla

Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, Vol 30(3), 2009, 166.

Reviews the book, Suicidal behavior by Richard McKeon (see record 2009-04175-000). This book was published in a successful and innovative series entitled Advances in Psychotherapy: Evidence-Based Practice. The text is compact, well organized, with many headings and a clear structure for the content. Text boxes highlight important information, such as diagnostic criteria and relevant concepts, as well as clinical vignettes and clinical pearls (i.e., important practical statements derived from the author’s clinical experiences). A rich bibliography, mainly from the 2000s, is cited in the text, related mostly to research and meta-analyses. This is the evidence-based approach to which the series is oriented. The text is kept brief and to the point, and is obviously aimed at the practitioner working directly in the care of suicidal patients. The goal is to help the clinician to assess suicidal risk and to avert self-harm or self-inflicted death. The volume’s practical usefulness is enhanced by brief sentences placed on the margins of each page, stating the main messages of the respective paragraphs. This volume is a masterful piece of work, an optimal mixture of a careful review of the literature and personal experiences written in a didactic, user-friendly way. It must be read by anyone dealing with suicidal individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Methods of intervention.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910.29.2.107

By Buda, Béla

Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, Vol 29(2), 2008, 107.

Reviews the book, Crisis intervention. A handbook of immediate person-to-person help (5th ed.) by Kenneth France (see record 2007-05954-000). This book is, first of all, a practical guidebook, well-written, with good typographical outlay, suitable to find topics and to get methods, concepts, and frames for handling problems. But it is at the same time also a textbook, everything is very thoroughly documented, based on a 32 page bibliography. The book is intended, primarily, for caregivers. Its content structure is stable through the subsequent editions, the first two chapters "provide core concepts that are fundamental to all intervention on efforts," while the subsequent three chapters refer to special populations and the final four chapters deal with service-related issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Review of Suicide. An unnecessary death.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1027//0227-5910.22.1.39

By Buda, Béla

Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, Vol 22(1), 2001, 39.

Reviews the book, Suicide. An unnecessary death edited by Danuta Wasserman (2001). The book takes stock of our present knowledge concerning suicide and presents a state-of-the-art summary of research findings in different aspects of suicide behavior, its etiology, risks factors, and psychological mechanisms as well as its treatment and prevention. The authors are foremost experts of the field who participate regularly at international congresses of the field, such as IASP, EASP, AAS, etc., meetings. The book contains 32 chapters, each of which is relatively brief but well condensed, having a similar structure of content and a short, obviously carefully selected bibliography, citing only the most recent and relevant literature. This is a fine book, a milestone of theoretical and practical evaluation of the present suicide research and prevention efforts. It can therefore be recommended for everybody who is interested in the topic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

WHO published a global imperative on Prevention of suicide two years ago.

Could it not be that education is grossly oversold as a remedy for intractable social problems like drug abuse, unwanted pregnancy, AIDS, racism, etc?   Can we have an example where education has been an undoubted success?

I think part of the problem with this mindset is the focus is on preventing death by suicide.  It sends the message that suicidal urges, ideations, and other, non-lethal behaviors are of less importance.  As long as the person doesn't die then they have been successful.

I can't think of any other medical condition in which the only focus is the prevention of death from the condition.  Usually the focus is on a reduction of symptoms and functional impairment and an increase in quality of life.  However, when it comes to death by suicide, none of that is of primary importance.  The primary importance is to keep people alive at all costs. 

This ideology sends the message to patients that their struggles with suicidality don't matter unless they are likely to die from them.  I actually know of patients that have been told by their psychiatrist that they're not allowed to talk about their suicidality with them.  I don't see how educating people on "suicide prevention" will change this issue. 

The focus needs to change from preventing deaths by suicide to reducing symptoms of suicidality.  Doing so should reduce the death rate as a result.  I believe we need to spend time focused on finding specific anti-suicidality medication treatments (not just antidepressants).  If patients knew they could just take some medication and their suicidal urges, ideation, and behaviors would go away, most of them would chose this option over continued suffering. 

Towards this aim, Dr. David Sheehan and I published a book last year, Suicidality: A Roadmap for Assessment and Treatment (see link to book listing, copy of table of contents, and chapter 1 below).  The entire point of the book is to provide researchers the tools needed to develop specific anti-suicidality medication treatments.  One of the keys to doing so is subdividing suicidality into different phenotypes.  We all know that a person experiencing a command hallucination to kill themself is unlikely to respond positively to the same medication that treats suicidality in Major Depressive Disorder.  Similarly, a person experiencing suicidality due to cocaine withdrawal needs a different treatment than a person that is suicidal because their family just died in a car accident.  By subdividing suicidality into phenotypes, as we have done in the book, it allows researchers to find treatments for each specific suicidality in a manner similar to how oncologists use different treatments for different forms of cancer.

Once we do this, we can begin re-educating people based upon the idea that effective treatments are available and there is no need for continued suffering.  Only then are we likely to see a significant shift in death by suicide rates.

Book Suicidality: A Roadmap for Assessment and Treatment

Data Suicidality A Roadmap for Assessment and Treatment Table of ...

Data RoadmapChapter1.1forResearchGate

For Hendrika/Alexander/Anthony/Jennifer - Thank you most sincerely for your helpful responses. My case study-based qualitative research (MSc, 2001; PhD,2010) investigated aftermath of suicide for family & clinicians. The principle that underpins my thinking (mindset?) is: What you do not understand you will not be able to change - in yourself or in society or in humanity. That's what I mean by education. Understanding must precede problem identification & definition, analysis, option scheduling, etc. Suicide is personal, idiosyncratic, and unique to and for each and every deceased extinguished life. Hence seeking 'answers' (viz. General Theory of Suicide) by way of quantitative statistical analysis of incomplete data (NB the principal witness is deceased) from thousands of individual catastrophes is destined to fail. Expecting that identification of commonalities, similarities, differences, parallels, et al. will generate an answer in any individual case - past,current or , future - is more than somewhat optimistic. Oh and I do not have any alternative, simplistic solution.My own approach is informed by the humility and compassionate thinking of the master suicidologists including Edwin Shneidman (RIP) & Israel Orbach (RIP). It's suicide's complexity that interests me. Think about other insoluble human issues: war, poverty, climate change, etc, Getting the idea eh? Hope you see this, reflect, and respond. My best to you.

Philip O'Keeffe PhD MSc Reg MBACP (Accred)   Email: [email protected]   

Philip: I decided to revisit your very pertinent question which I neglected to comment on earlier. I'm not sure that my take on “education for suicide prevention” aligns with yours or the other respondents. I see it as necessary at two levels. The first is directed at the general public to develop a broad base of understanding for support of suicide prevention resources and programming at the community level. The second is directed at behavioral health professionals to develop the knowledge base and skills to design, implement, and evaluate suicide prevention policies and programs in the governmental and nonprofit sectors.

The first exists to some degree in the US and elsewhere. It mostly takes the form of so-called “suicide prevention awareness-raising” and usually involves community information campaigns about suicide warning signs, risk and protective factors, rates, and other items. It also encompasses gatekeeper training activities such as QPR, ASIST, and other basic suicide crisis intervention techniques. This level of suicide prevention education seems to be growing because it is relatively easy to do and comparatively low cost.

As for the second, education to do suicide prevention, well, that is another story. To be sure there are occasional CE course and workshop offerings on this topic as well as some texts and articles. These do not seem to have produced any significant number of folks interested and able to set-up and run suicide prevention programs. Suicide prevention education does not seem to have taken hold in academia. There seem to be few graduate or undergraduate courses in any related field of study. I think there are few degree programs in suicidology worldwide. Why is this the case? Perhaps it is a reflection of the nascent and emergent state of suicidology as a field of study itself.

Hope these thought are of some use or at least of interest. Here’s my view of what needs to be done by way of suicide prevention education: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/toward-suicide-prevention-literacy-tony-salvatore. Regards!

Tony - Thank you very much for your cogent response. I offered part-time short courses at Belfast Queen's University's School of Education (Lifelong Learning) for several years to 2014. These were entitled Introduction to Suicidology, Suicide Research, Further Developments in Suicidology, and the like. I did not focus upon 'prevention' per se. Interest levels among our general public were minimal. I had previously presented counselling courses for years and I suspect (he said modestly) that some students may have attended because of the tutor rather than his subject. Another factor was the obvious link between counselling and addressing suicide ideation that exists in the popular mind - in UK/Ireland suicide awareness-raising activities predominate as mentioned by Tony re the US. In the meantime, deaths by suicide continue to escalate, locally, nationally, globally. To cite the cliche: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you've always got." The current paradigm must change. There's nothing simple about self-destruction. Hence education for understanding something of its complexity. I wish you well Tony, my friend.

Philip O'Keeffe PhD Email: [email protected]  

I was in Belfast last month and reviewed some statistics with a local MD.   I notice the number of inpatient suicides are increasing exponentially.    Has anyone thought about preforming risk assessment of the Behavioral Healthcare facilities and installing anti-ligature fixtures to reduce the risk?  

Patrick - Thks for msg. Could you oblige by referring "a local MD" (mentioned in your message of 1 Aug 2017) to me in Belfast so that we might - over coffee or whatever you're having yourself - consider our local catastrophic suicide crisis. See my earlier writing (June 8 & 12) for confirmation of my view/mindset re suicide's complexity. Otherwise I wish you well. Philip O'Keeffe Email - [email protected]