Citation

Pirkis J. Crisis 2023; 44(4): 259-260.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, International Association for Suicide Prevention, Publisher Hogrefe Publishing)

DOI

10.1027/0227-5910/a000920

PMID

37540131

Abstract

Over time, increasing prominence has been given to the social determinants of suicide and how these might be addressed (Fitzpatrick, 2018). There has been a shift from viewing suicide as a predominantly clinical problem associated with mental illness, to viewing it as a public health issue that arises from the confluence of a complex range of individual and societal factors. At an individual level, mental illness and other clinical risk factors are still seen as important, but so too are factors like people's access to education and employment, the way they have been socialized, their cultural heritage, the stressors that may be playing a role in their lives, and their exposure to suicide. These individual-level factors interact with a vast array of social determinants relating to how society values and supports individuals. There is now increasing recognition that combatting suicide involves a multipronged approach that includes good mental health care but is not limited to this. It also requires commitment from sectors outside mental health that can make a quantum difference to people's lives, like employment, housing, justice, and welfare (Pirkis et al., 2023).

Running in parallel with this increased focus on the social determinants of suicide has been a greater emphasis on the perspectives of people with lived and living experience of suicide. People who live with suicidal thoughts or have made a suicide attempt reinforce the idea that suicide is complex, and that no one person's experiences are the same as another's. Many do say, however, that although their wish to put an end to their emotional pain can be underpinned by mental health problems, there is often a whole range of other factors at play such as stigma and discrimination, cultural or religious pressures, isolation, relationship issues, financial problems, and lack of support from social services (Luhaaar & Sisask, 2018; Shamsaei et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2018). The corollary of this is that although they see clinical services as a core response in any suicide prevention strategy, they are increasingly calling for peer-led, nonclinical services to complement these clinical approaches (Schlichthorst et al., 2020)...

Language: en