BMJ 1998;317:156-157 ( 18 July )

Editorials

A national target for reducing suicide

Important for mental health strategy as well as for suicide prevention 

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The mental health target in the green paper Our Healthier Nation is "to reduce the death rate from suicide and undetermined injury by at least a further sixth (17%) by 2010, from a baseline at 1996."1 The former government's Health of the Nation strategy included two suicide targets---namely, a 15% reduction in the overall suicide rate and a 33% reduction in the rate in the severely mentally ill.2 The initial suicide targets were controversial, argument centring on the advisability of a target for a relatively uncommon event (about 5000 suicides and open verdicts each year in England and Wales), the difficulty of predicting suicide, and the pressure the targets might place on psychiatric services. Nevertheless, the overall suicide rate has declined since the original targets were set. Most importantly, the previous rapid rise in suicides in men aged 15-44 years has started to reverse.1 Why do we still need a suicide target . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

A national target for reducing suicide
M Abas, M J Crawford, and Robert Colgate
BMJ 1999 318: 191. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • EAGLES, J. M., KLEIN, S., GRAY, N. M., DEWAR, I. G., ALEXANDER, D. A. (2001). Role of psychiatrists in the prediction and prevention of suicide: a perspective from north-east Scotland. Br. J. Psychiatry 178: 494-496 [Full text]  
  • Abas, M, Crawford, M J, Colgate, R. (1999). A national target for reducing suicide. BMJ 318: 191a-191 [Full text]  

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