This review aims to synthesise the evidence of the prevalence of suicidal and self-harm ideation in fathers during the perinatal, postnatal and early parenting period. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
'It remains staggering that the patients that might need psychological therapy the most, i.e. patients with high risk for suicidality remain excluded from most of the trials. This limits the insights into the effectiveness of most common offered interventions in daily clinical practice on suicidality.'
This systematic review aimed to identify and evaluate the psychological factors that protect against suicidality in older age. Open access article - no login required.
Implications for practice and research:
-Many maternal suicides occur after 42 days post partum, suggesting a need for targeted suicide prevention for late maternal suicides.
-Improved data linkage between suicide and maternal deaths could inform service design and commissioning but requires integration with suicide prevention theory to design and deliver effective suicide prevention interventions.
To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
'As the NHS moves towards providing Enhanced Primary Care Services, which include mental health services for people with more complex presentations, such an intervention may offer practitioners an easily implementable tool which could help reduce escalation to secondary care and improve mental health literacy'
...the present study: (1) examined whether self-report scales assessing intrapersonal motives (i.e., relieving negative emotions, enhancing positive emotions, punishing oneself) and interpersonal motives (i.e., bonding with others, conforming with others, communicating distress, communicating strength, reducing demands) have invariant factor structures across SDBs; and (2) compared the salience of these motives across SDBs. Open access article - no login required
The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of the literature on the variables associated with self-harm and aggression... To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
To evaluate the implementation of a mixed virtual and in-person brief intervention for young people, aged 12–25 years, presenting to a large urban mental health service in crisis with suicidal ideation and/or self-harm. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
This study found impulsiveness and depression to be risk factors for adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury and play a crucial role between cumulative ecological risk and NSSI in adolescents. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
"The evidence in this article suggests the suicide prevention potential of prioritising the issue at hand and helping men solve problems with practical advice first, before addressing any underlying psychological issues that may have exacerbated the crisis."
"The authors highlight that clinicians could focus on depression for those who present with suicidal ideation and loneliness; but that if clients report experiencing romantic loneliness, reduction in ideation may be resistant to lessening." It isn't just older people who experience loneliness - younger people do too.
Initial psychological assessments, formulation and interventions should take into account service users’ socio-economic backgrounds and potential systemic changes that can be made in order to reduce the risk of self-harm. The established links between how area-level and individual characteristics may influence the risk of self-harm can help clinicians conceptualise the service users’ difficulties and develop initial hypotheses to drive their action plan and intervention, as well as explore more in-depth the systems surrounding the individual. The study offers insights for policymakers, as reducing deprivation and social inequalities can be proven an important strategy in suicide prevention (Hawton et al., 2001). This could be done by ensuring access to practical support for vulnerable groups, such as employment and financial assistance, or advocating on their behalf when needed (i.e., writing letters of support to access benefits or safe housing).
Psychotherapy for self-harm - Hannah Wallace summarises a systematic review exploring people's experiences of psychotherapy for self-harming behaviours.
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns were predicted to have a major impact on suicidal behaviour, including self-harm. However, current studies have produced contradictory findings with limited trend data. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Suicidal behavior is heritable and is a major cause of death worldwide. Two large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWASs) recently discovered and cross-validated genome-wide significant (GWS) loci for suicide attempt (SA). The present study leveraged the genetic cohorts from both studies to conduct the largest GWAS meta-analysis of SA to date. Multi-ancestry and admixture-specific meta-analyses were conducted within groups of significant African, East Asian, and European ancestry admixtures. To read the full article, choose Open Athens “Institutional Login” and search for “Midlands Partnership”.
Authors concluded in-school peer friendships are associated with self harm thoughts and behaviour but can also be positive. Implications for practice include increasing sense of community within schools (staff and peers care about students as individuals, not just about learning); identify friendship groups where one or more individuals have known self harm; have school-based interventions in place to address self-harm
The authors identified several important clinical practice implications and opportunities for youth suicide prevention:
- realise importance of positive experiences when seeking help
- aware that early suicidal thoughts can progress and represent an opportunity for early intervention
- not assume shared meanings of language - work with the young person to examine the language and find shared meaning together
- take an individualisd, person-centred approach to work with young people