Organizational and medical barriers in providing medical care to the population for suicide prevention

Objective. To assess the awareness of healthcare professionals about suicide prevention.

Materials and methods. A survey of managers, general practitioners, and medical specialists of Gomel region was conducted on the topic of “Organizational and medical barriers in providing medical care to the population for the prevention of suicides (SU)”. Respondents were also asked to provide recommendations and suggestions for improving SU prevention measures at the level of healthcare organizations, at the district (city) and regional levels of medical care.

Results. The conducted study made it possible to determine the presence of barriers in provision of medical care to the population for the prevention of SU.

More than half of the respondents (255 (51,93 %) people) noted that the presence of suicidal thoughts is a very rare phenomenon, in 344 (70,06 %) responses the respondents assumed that if someone wants to kill themselves, they do not talk about it. 241 (49,08 %) doctors believe that people talk about possible self-inflicted harm only to attract attention. A significant majority of specialists (442 (90,02 %)) indicated that people who attempt SU often have a serious sense of hopelessness and isolation and are unwilling to discuss their suicidal thoughts.

Two thirds of respondents (327 (66,60 %)) assumed the annual mortality rate from SU in the world to be about 4,5 per 100000 of population. Opinions regarding the frequency of SU attempts by gender divided approximately equally. Thus, only 290 (59,06 %) respondents noted that SU attempts are more frequent among men than women.

Conclusion. The studied data indicate low awareness of health workers on the prevalence of suicidal activity among the population. However, sufficient awareness of doctors on the characteristics of suicidal behavior, suicidal thinking, actions, motives and conditions for committing SU was revealed. This determines the need to strengthen educational programs aimed at raising the awareness of specialists.

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