Inpatient suicides on medical-surgical and intensive care units, while rare, may be reduced through standardized staff training and protocols, according to research published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
Researchers reviewed 45 suicide attempts and five completed suicides on medical-surgical or intensive care units in Veterans Health Administration hospitals over 13 years.
They concluded root causes of suicide included inadequate communication of suicide risk, need for staff education about suicide assessments and need for better treatment for depression. To eliminate these root causes, researchers suggested improving staff education, putting standardized communication about suicide risk in place and creating standardized management protocols for suicidal patients.