Research Suggests That Psychiatric Interventions Like Admission to a Mental Facility Could Increase

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http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/research-suggests-psychiatric-interventions-admission-mental-facility-could-increase

One of the most provocative studies of suicide ever done was published in the September edition of the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. It appeared shortly after Robin Williams’ suicide, and shortly before the World Health Organization’s World Suicide Prevention Day. Both of those events received widespread media attention, but this study was not reported by any media that I’ve seen, except relatively obscurely by me in my role as news editor for the online science and psychiatry community Mad In America.

The study looked at a broad population and identified some closely related, easily modifiable factors in people’s lives that were linked to being 6 times, 28 times, and even 44 times more likely to commit suicide.

It’s important to pause on those numbers. In the world of suicide prevention statistics, they are truly staggering. What other risk factor is associated with people being 44 times more likely to kill themselves? There aren’t any. Not even close. That’s why this year the US Preventive Services Task Force once again recommended against conducting suicide screening tests – they just aren’t reliable. That’s why the most sage advice that the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s web page about “Warning Signs” can provide us with is to check if our loved ones are “looking for a way to kill themselves” or “calling people to say goodbye.”

And that’s also why it’s all the more curious that this new study has gone largely unreported. Most discoveries of potential suicide risk factors -- no matter how seemingly tenuous -- ignite widespread discussion. For example, in June, NBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, NPR, USA Today, Bloomberg, the Washington Post and many other news media headlined a study that loosely linked US FDA warnings on antidepressants to a relative 30% increase or 0.0002% absolute increase in occurrences in drug poisonings, a tentative proxy for suicide attempts. Hundreds of outlets reported in September on a study that found increases in the rate of suicides to be associated with decreases in exposure to sunshine – differences in rates that were so low that no outlets I saw even bothered to quote the actual numbers. Another study covered recently in the American Psychiatric Association’s flagship Psychiatric News, and widely replayed in other media, sounded the alarm that not getting enough sleep was associated with a 1.2 times higher likelihood of suicide.