Suicide Prevention & Clinical Implications

Background:In the past twenty years, the annual suicide rate has increased 30% nationwide and 46% in Utah. Clinicians work on the frontline with patients. Proactive screening for suicide risk factors and prompt intervention can preventing suicide. Provider's lack of awareness of recently-identified suicide risk factors have been identified in clinical screening for suicide risks.Methods: A quality improvement project was developed to increase clinicians' knowledge of suicide risk factors and their frequency in screening for suicide risks during patient encounters. A pretest survey was used to assess the clinicians' knowledge and frequency in screening suicide risk factors. An educational PowerPoint presentation and a simple checklist as a screening tool were developed based on the findings of the pretest survey and literature research. A posttest survey was used to assess the effectiveness of this project in increasing the frequency with which the clinicians screened suicide risk factors. Results: Six out of 18 clinicians participated in the pretest survey (one other was excluded due to maternity leave). Five out of the six clinicians who answered the pretest survey questions finished the posttest survey. After the presentation, every NP started screening at least one of the recently-discovered suicide risk factors (at least three of which were previously unknown to them), and their frequency in screening all suicide risk factors increased from 40% to 50%. Conclusions: This project identified a lack of awareness about more-recently-identified suicide risk factors among practicing psychiatric mental health (PMH) clinicians. Educating clinicians about new suicide risk factors and addending current risk assessment tools facilitates patient safety outcomes. Dissemination of updated suicide risk factors and assessment tools to a wider network of clinicians on both state and national levels is consistent with best practice protocols for patient safety.