Enhancing Suicide Risk Assessment Through Evidence-Based Psychiatry

By Robert I. Simon, MD | January 1, 2009

Dr Simon is clinical professor of psychiatry and director of the Program in Psychiatry and Law at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. The author reports that he was a one-time consultant for Novartis.

How important are religious beliefs in preventing suicide? Dervic and colleagues²⁹ evaluated 371 depressed inpatients about their religious affiliation. Patients who were without a religious affiliation had significantly more suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who completed suicide than did patients who had religious affiliations. Patients with no religious affiliation were younger and less likely to be married or have children; they had less contact with family members. These patients felt they had fewer reasons for living and had relatively few moral objections to suicide. There was no difference in subjective and objective depression, hopelessness, or stressful life events between persons with religious affiliations and those without. Their findings indicate that greater moral objection to suicide and lower aggression level in religiously affiliated patients may act as protective factors.

Religious beliefs, however, may not necessarily protect against suicide—severe mental illness can overcome protective factors. For example, a patient with bipolar disorder stated hopelessly that “God has forsaken me.” A devout, severely depressed patient hurled blasphemous insults at God. In a twist, where religion became a facilitating risk factor, a suicidal patient stated, “God will forgive me if I kill myself.”

Additional resources
Case reports, case series, and clinical consensus, though not evidence-based, can aid suicide risk assessment. For example, in a systematic review of the relevant literature, Hansen³⁰ found that akathisia could not be definitively linked to suicidal behavior. In individual cases, however, clinical judgment may determine that akathisia adds to the patient’s total illness burden, thus potentially increasing suicide risk. Evidence-based studies must be interpreted through the lens of the clinician’s education, training, experience, and reasoned clinical judgment.

The suicide prevention contract (SPC), also referred to as a no-harm contract, is a classic example of misconception. The SPC often masquerades as a protective factor, but it can be an iatrogenic suicide risk factor. The SPC can falsely reassure the clinician, which may preempt an adequate suicide risk assessment and increase the patient’s risk of suicide.¹⁰ There have not been any studies that demonstrate that the SPC is effective in preventing suicide attempts or completions.³¹

Managed care settings become a potential suicide risk factor if clinicians allow third-party payers to dictate premature discharges of suicidal patients. Very often, these decisions are made based on so-called safety contracts with severely mentally ill suicidal patients, who are rapidly treated and discharged, compounding suicide risk.

Beyond evidence-based general suicide risk factors, suicidal patients have individual “signature” symptoms and behaviors that are associated with suicide risk. “Signature” risk factors recur during subsequent suicide crises. A patient’s distinctive suicide risk factor pattern should receive high priority in assessing suicide risk.³² An example is when a guarded, schizophrenic patient with a severe stutter speaks clearly when at high risk for suicide. Once his stutter returns, he is discharged from the hospital at low suicide risk. This individual specific behavior is repeated a number of times and the clinician considers it to be a reliable behavioral indicator of suicide risk. The assessment of behavioral risk factors is important, especially with guarded or deceptive suicidal patients.2 Employing evidence-based risk factors in suicide assessment is essential, but knowing a patient’s unique suicide risk profile is critical.

Summary
There are a number of suicide risk assessment methods.² Clinicians, however, must fashion their own approach based on their training, clinical experience, and familiarity with the suicide literature. Because of its singular importance, the suicide risk assessment should be documented as a separate narrative paragraph in the initial psychiatric evaluation and thereafter in the progress notes.

Armed with the ability to perform competent suicide risk assessments, the psychiatrist can confidently treat the patient at risk for suicide, one of the most complex, difficult, and challenging clinical tasks in psychiatry.

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Pages: 1 2 3 4

References
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Enhancing Suicide Risk Assessment Through Evidence-Based Psychiatry

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