What Needs to be Improved to Prevent Suicidal Ideas Among Gun Owners?

Suicidal ideation among gun owners is often missed to be identified through mental health assessments when compared to non-gun owners, as per a study at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, published in the journal JAMA Network Open. The study states that gun owners and non-gun owners experience thoughts about suicide in different ways, which may explain why the standard questions to identify those at risk of suicide often fall short.

Different Suicide Ideation

“Not everyone experiences suicidal ideation in the same way. So, maybe our traditional ways of asking about suicidal thoughts are incomplete. Just a simple shift in questioning, adding one more different perspective or a different angle to ask about suicidal thoughts could potentially help us to identify people who are in a vulnerable state,” says Craig Bryan, Ohio State’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health.

The study thereby states that expanded inquiries tailored to individual situations can save lives.

“Suicidal crises tend to come on suddenly, but don’t last very long. So, if we limit access to lethal methods during that short window of time, that could potentially prevent a suicide.” “Part of the reason that we’ve not been better at preventing suicide is we always try to find, ‘What’s the one path that everybody follows?’ But there is no single path. There are multiple paths, and we need to customize different strategies, interventions and prevention approaches for those different pathways,” says Bryan, author of the book Rethinking Suicide: Why Prevention Fails, and How We Can Do Better.

Source-Medindia