Risk Factors Of Suicide

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Recommended: Essay on future of the problem of elderly suicide

Risk Factors
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), risks factors are characteristics of an individual that are associated with suicide. These characteristics shown may or may not be directly linked to suicide as they vary from one individual to another. Some of the risk factors of suicide in elderly individuals include:
• Having suicide thoughts, planning for a suicide or having a desire for death. It is not wrong for an elderly person to think about death as he ages. However, it is risky if an elderly constantly thinks about it and desires to die. The idea of committing suicide usually comes before suicidal behaviour and it can potentially enhance the risk of committing suicide. It is believed that cognitive functioning in the elderly may be distorted and this may lead to depression. According to Beck’s cognitive triad, depression arises from unrealistically negative views about the individual’s self, the world and the future. In the perspective of individual’s self, an elderly will have negative thoughts about himself. He believes that he is hopeless and incapable of contributing to the society. For example, a paralysed elderly might think that he is worthless as he cannot work due to his restricted mobility. The elderly will then have a negative view about the world. This happens when the elderly thinks that the world is unfair towards him. This then leads to having negative thoughts about the future whereby the elderly would make a conclusion that their troubles and sufferings will occur again and indefinitely. They will also think that that failure awaits them. When three of these elements take place, the elderly’s rationality and cognition is negatively affected and in addition to depression, sui...

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...friender provides a befriending service for high-risk elderly.
2. Working group on Dementia and Elderly Suicide (1998). This group provides recommendations on the need for elderly suicide research as well as services to prevent elderly suicide
3. Pilot project on elderly suicide prevention. This project has been carried out for three years since 2001.The project has three components:
I. A life-clinic provides consultations for suicidal elderly
II. An Asian-Pacific Regional Conference on suicide prevention among elderly
III. A series of territory-wide community education programs on healthy ageing and promoting mental health.

Elderly suicide prevention receives minute focus even though suicide prevention is a significant public concern. People need to be educated about the elderly suicide issues and ways to detect to prevent suicide rate in elderly from increasing.

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