Abstract
Summary Suicide and self-harm are major health and societal issues worldwide, but the greatest burden of both behaviours occurs in low-income and middle-income countries. Although rates of suicide are higher in male than in female individuals, self-harm is more common in female individuals. Rather than having a single cause, suicide and self-harm are the result of a complex interplay of several factors that occur throughout the life course, and vary by gender, age, ethnicity, and geography. Several clinical and public health interventions show promise, although our understanding of their effectiveness has largely originated from high-income countries. Attempting to predict suicide is unlikely to be helpful. Intervention and prevention must include both a clinical and community focus, and every health professional has a crucial part to play.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1903-1916 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | Lancet |
| Volume | 399 |
| Issue number | 10338 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2 May 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:DK is funded through the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research at the University of Bristol, which is supported by the Wellcome Trust. DK is also in receipt of a grant from the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention. PP's PhD clinical fellowship is funded by the UK Medical Research Council Addiction Research Clinical Training programme, grant number MR/N00616X/1. PP is also in receipt of a grant from Bristol and Weston Hospitals Charity. LFC declares receiving funding from Johnson & Johnson. NK chaired the committees developing the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for self-harm (longer term management) 2012, and the NICE quality standards on self-harm 2013; NK is currently topic adviser for the new NICE guidelines on self-harm and chair of the guideline committee for the NICE depression guidelines. NK works with National Health Service (NHS) England on national quality improvement initiatives for suicide and self-harm, and sits on the Department of Health and Social Care's National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group for England. The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and not those of the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, or NICE.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
Research Groups and Themes
- SASH
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This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Elsevier at https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00173-8. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.