Examples Of Nursing Intervention On Suicide Prevention

764 Words2 Pages

Nursing Intervention on Suicide Prevention 2

The base of this assignment is to explore nursing interventions that will improve the care of clinical practice regarding the prevention of patient suicide. Suicide is one of the top leading causes of deaths among the young adult according to the CDC. (Taylor 2008) Statistics show that there is a gap in gender difference, where men make up almost eighty percent of total suicides in 2010. In which there was 38,364 lost lives do to suicides that year. (cdc.gov). That is why it is imperative not to take any signs of attempt of suicide lightly. The nursing intervention is set to prevent suicide by performing a mental health assessment and thus keeping the patient in close observations to promote their wellbeing, which the following summaries will cover.

Assessing patients for suicide risk

Knowing to intervene by detecting warning signs is the first step to help prevent a suicide attempt. Being able to detect the warning signs could be as small as paying attention to of how they speak, act and their overall outlook in life. If the patient is hospitalized, make sure the patient is close to the nurses station where the patient can be easily monitored by all coworkers. Make sure the room is safe. First, remove any objects that could be used by the patient that can cause harm to themselves or others and ensure that the patient does not have any medications on them. When giving the patient their medications, check to make sure they have been swallowed. (Guptill, J. (2011).
A nurse can expand resources and use safe coping plans. Interventions can include a no-suicide contract, family therapy and school suicide prevention programs. Nurses can identify the patient at risk for suicide...

... middle of paper ...

...sment as part of their routine nursing assessment ( Captain,C.(2008 )

Early nursing interventions have shown to drive down the rates of suicide. As I brainstormed ideas of how to improve the clinical practice I noticed that any care, regardless of the situation, begins with the nurse and her or his attitude towards the patient. It is crucial because the nurse is usually the first person that encounters the patient and if he nurse can establish a relationship with the patient, I believe patients will have the opportunity to open up.
I consider that more research is needs to be established in his field, being that it is a third leading cause of deaths in America and over 500,000 patients end up in the hospital a year for failed suicide attempt (cdc.gov). It was difficult to find recent nursing articles on nursing interventions in the prevention of patient suicide.

Open Document