© 2002 Oxford University Press
Brief Intervention Strategies for the Prevention of Youth Suicide
From the School of Social Administration & Social Work at Flinders University of South Australia.
Contact author: James G. Barber, PhD, Professor of Social Administration and Head of Research, School of Administration and Social Work, Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, Australia. E-mail: jim.barber{at}flinders.edu.au.
Suicide prevention has not been adequately addressed since the "global" mortality rate for suicide for the year 2000 was 16 per 100,000, which averages one death every 40 seconds somewhere in the world. This article examines brief clinical and community-based interventions for the prevention of youth suicide. Among the more commonly advocated clinical methods for at-risk adolescents are cognitive behavioral treatments, interpersonal psychotherapy, and psychopharmacological interventions. Community-based prevention methods consist of 24-hour crisis centers and hotlines, method restriction, indirect case-finding, direct case-finding, media communications, postvention programs, parenting programs, and cultural programs for minority groups. It is concluded that a number of promising primary and secondary prevention interventions now exist but that there is a need for more carefully controlled evaluations into their effectiveness.
KEY WORDS: youth suicide, brief clinical interventions, community interventions, cognitive behavioral treatments, psychotherapy, psychopharmacological interventions, crisis centers and hotlines, case-finding