Assessing suicide risk in the adult patient

Assessing the Suicide Risk in Adult Patients
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Chapter 3
The article starts by saying that suicide and suicidal patients are a pervasive part of the mental health practice. According to a survey, a typical psychologist sees up to five patients for whom suicide is a problem. 36% of the professionals surveyed indicated they had lost a patient during their practice. In the same way, 97% of the practitioners, have treated at least a patient sporting suicidal tendencies. This indicates that most professionals offer suboptimal care in the issues related to suicide. In the same way, most of them lacked a formal assessment of suicide risk among their patients. Also, for most psychology or medical trainees, asking questions about suicide to their patients is a delicate issue, and most of them do not do it. We can say that this happens because there is not an authority that defines the standard of care for suicide risk assessment. Although the APA has a series of guidelines that could constitute an assessment, they do not constitute a standard.
Among the factors that contribute to the rates of suicide are Access to firearms; medical illnesses; prior suicide attempts; suicidal communications; social isolation; Biological-Gene tic-Dispositional, and Lack of Protective Factors. In the same way, there are methods to determine those risks such as psychological testing. For instance, the use of the MMPI-2, or the DSM-5 to deter…