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 Half of all suicide deaths in the U.S. are due to firearms. How many
could be prevented by limiting firearm access for substance abusers,
people with a mental health condition and people with a history of
suicide attempts?
“Few,” Jennifer Boggs of Kaiser Permanente Colorado in Denver and
her colleagues write in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The
researchers reviewed the medical records of 2,674 adults and
teenagers who died by suicide between 2000 and 2013 and had been
patients of a network of health care systems participating in a
suicide risk identification study.
A bit more than half, 55 percent, had a mental health or substance
abuse problem and about 43 percent of those committed suicide with a
firearm.
Only 11 percent had previously attempted suicide, of whom a little
more than a third, committed suicide with a firearm.
Overall, 671 people with no mental health or substance abuse
condition committed suicide by firearm during the study period
compared with 627 who had one or both diagnoses.
Only 109 who previously attempted suicide used a firearm to kill
themselves compared with 1,189 who did not.
Put another way, only about a quarter of individuals with a known
mental health or substance abuse problem committed suicide by
firearm, as did just 4 percent of those who had previously attempted
suicide.
Based on the findings, the authors suggest that suicide prevention
efforts expand beyond firearms to include people who may be thinking
of using other means of suicide.
“To truly make a difference in reducing suicide rates, we need to
find and help more of the people who are at risk,” Boggs told
Reuters Health by email.
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“Most people who die by firearm suicide haven’t sought or received
care for a mental health or substance abuse condition and therefore
are unlikely to be identified in advance,” she adds.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum of Columbia University College of Physicians and
Surgeons in New York City told Reuters Health that all health
professionals should be aware of suicidal thinking in their
patients, ask about access to firearms and advise families to remove
guns from the home.
That said, many suicidal people aren’t in contact with the medical
system. “Even when they are, suicide is difficult to predict,” he
said by email.
“Unless the overall prevalence of firearms in our society is
reduced,” said Appelbaum, who was not involved in the study, “it
will be difficult to prevent the use of guns in suicides.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fazTFW Annals of Internal Medicine, online
July 3, 2017.
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