CPD activities: Suicide prevention at work

Occupational health and other employees can play a major role in suicide prevention at work. These CPD activities aim to improve OH professionals’ understanding of this topic and are related to Dr Simon Walker’s article.

Activity 1

Reflect on your experience of seeing clients with mental health difficulties. Did you broach the subject of suicidal ideation? If you did not, why not? If you did, how did you do raise this?

Would you change your approach in future consultations? If so, what changes would you make to how you would undertake your consultation?

Activity 2

Read this article by Dazzi et al, which examines whether asking about suicide and related behaviours induce suicidal ideation.

Activity 3

Assume you are delivering training sessions for managers on mental health. Think of what you would include in a 30-minute session about how a manager might encounter a staff member who may be contemplating suicide. Think about what you would you incorporate within such training, including how the occupational health service can support both employee and manager.

Activity 4

Read Mind’s resources about suicide.

Activity 5

Identify organisations that support people who are contemplating suicide. Find out what they do and how you may signpost a client to them. You may find it helpful to start with the Samaritans.

These links may be helpful:

Samaritans
Mind
NHS
Suicide Prevention UK
Young Minds
Papyrus

Activity 6

Here is some further reading on this topic:

Beck, J. (2018). ‘When Will People Get Better at Talking About Suicide?’. The Atlantic.

Chatmon, B. N. (2020). Males and Mental Health Stigma. American Journal of Men’s Health, 14(4).

Isometsä, E. T., & Lönnqvist, J. K. (1998). Suicide attempts preceding completed suicide. The British Journal of Psychiatry: The Journal of Mental Science, 173, 531–535.

Levi-Belz, Y., & Gilo, T. (2020). Emotional Distress Among Suicide Survivors: The Moderating Role of Self-Forgiveness. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11.

Mathias, C. W., Furr, R. M., Sheftall, A. H., Hill-Kapturczak, N., Crum, P., & Dougherty, D. M. (2012). What’s the Harm in Asking about Suicidal Ideation? Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior, 42(3), 341–351.

Nathan, N. A., & Nathan, K. I. (2020). Suicide, Stigma, and Utilizing Social Media Platforms to Gauge Public Perceptions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10.

Pitman, A., Osborn, D., King, M., & Erlangsen, A. (2014). Effects of suicide bereavement on mental health and suicide risk. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(1), 86–94.

The World Health Organization’s suicide prevention resources.